


ALONE

by thunderthunder



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Happy Ending, Haunting, Internet Famous, Light Depictions of Past Violence, M/M, Mystery, Paranormal Investigators, Past Character Death, Relating to Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21753133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderthunder/pseuds/thunderthunder
Summary: What bothered Yangyang the most was that Donghyuck was being painted as an example. The thing mainstream media will point to as they decry everything they’ve ever created. As if this wasn’t an anomaly. As if this wasn’t a tragedy. As if this wasn’t a monstrous act that shouldn’t have happened to anyone, anywhere.As if this wasn’t something unspeakable. As if this wasn’t something that had never been seen before. As if there wasn’t a long gone face on Donghyuck’s camera, left running as a dead man dragged him into the woods.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Liu Yang Yang
Comments: 43
Kudos: 158
Collections: ’00 FIC FEST: ROUND ONE





	ALONE

**Author's Note:**

> uhhh so we're finally here
> 
> i wrote this bad boy for #00129 and i enjoyed every second of it!!
> 
> fr though, i really want to thank my prompter for giving me inspiration over the course of this fic! i'm sure this isn't exactly what you pictured, but i hope you like it all the same! i had a ton of fun writing it and i hope you have even a fraction of as much fun reading it
> 
> and admin tea!! i know i wasn't the most active participant, but you really were a great mod. thank you for putting this on and being so great for all these months!
> 
> and thank you for reading!! i know it sounds tacky but thank you for giving the authors your time and energy, i really hope you like what i've written here regardless and that you have a good time reading it
> 
> enjoy! <3

Excerpts of video evidence collected from witness YANGYANG LIU in the missing persons case of DONGHYUCK LEE on the night of his disappearance.

**NOV 8 2019 19:28**

“Am I in frame, babe?”

 _Laughter_ “Can you please just sit still?” _and more,_ “You fit well when you sit up, move over a bit so there’s space for me.”

“Yeah, that looks good, let me get in frame.”

“Okay.”

“Take one!”

_A Deep inhale_ “ _Heywhatsupyouguys!_ ” _and shocked laughter_ “So today we’re _back at it again_ with another spooky mansion. And today, we’re going to be doing the-“

“You dick, can you never take this seriously?”

“What do you mean? I was serious, that was so serious.”

“ _Take two!_ ”

**NOV 8 2019 20:03**

_Creaking footsteps, the rustling of insulated clothes,_ “Okay, so what brings us to the middle of the countryside on this fine November evening, Donghyuck?”

“Well I’m so glad you asked, Yangyang, We’re here at the old-“

“And Rotting-“

“-that as well, site of Seo Manor.”

“And why is that, my dear friend?”

“Well why else? It’s haunted.” _a breath before charismatic continuance,_ “What we have here is one of the most haunted sights around, a lesser known haunting that’s developed a cult like following on reddit.”

“It must be quite the story”

“Yes, of course it is. We only ever pay attention to the big bads.”

“We have standards.”

“Of course,” _the smile is audible_.

“Regardless, today we’re investigating the ghost of this house, presumably those resulting from the murder-suicide that took place here before it was abandoned in the early twentieth century.”

“That’s brutal.”

“And so are the ghosts, one even has a death attributed to it.”

_Skepticism is audible_ , “No way.”

“Oh, yes way.”

_A quick laugh._

“Quit it! We’ll have to cut that!”

“It was a long enough pause just keep going!”

_Scuffling, fake fighting, gentle laughter that cracks on high notes. A tired, exhausted groan that pairs with a gentle pull closer._

“You’ve got it, love, killer ghost, get back on it.”

 _Exasperated laughter,_ “How did we end up as paranormal investigators? Why couldn’t we have just started a gaming channel like everyone else?”

 _Warm smiles._ “Oh, come on, you have fun.”

 _Sigh,_ “I do. Okay. Let’s do a new take.”

**NOV 8 2019 20:16**

“Take two!”

“So, Hyuck, you’re telling me once his father told him he was going to inherit the family lumber business, he saw all of his future responsibilities on the horizon and just decided to kill everyone in his whole family?”

“Yes.”

“Understandable.”

“So joking about murder aside-“

“It’s been, like, a hundred years, we can totally joke about it now.”

“ _Anyways_ ,” _stiffled giggles,_ “There’s a lot of debate over which spirit is the one that haunts the house. People like to think that the murderer himself is the one stomping through the hallways. However, there’s a solid camp that attributes it to one of the victims, because the ghost is more often distressed and panicked than actually hostile.”

“Does that mean they think that one of his victims was responsible for that death?”

“Well, everyone has their breaking point, don’t they?”

“I suppose, that would really be something. Say, Donghyuck, do you think this place is actually haunted?”

“Well,” _shuffling, turning from handheld cameras to the tripod,_ “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

“Cut! Okay I think that will be fine.”

_The click of a tripod cutting off as this camera keeps filming b-roll._

“If someplace was going to be haunted,” _soft wind whistling,_ “My bet would be on here.”

“It’s a good enough story to buy as well, I got the creeps while researching it.”

“How many people actually died here?”

“Six. Ghost victim, mom, dad, brother, fiancé, murderer.”

“Five then,” _firm moral judgement,_ “Whoever killed them was a monster, no one worth remembering.”

**NOV 8 2019 20:38**

“So we’ve set up the motion sensors here, along the second floor landing, because this is where visitors claim to hear the the ghost fleeing for their life from John.”

“Kind of terrifying to think that they were chased up stairs. Where on Earth could they have really gone?”

“They found the brother and the fiancé in the bedroom up here at the end of the hallway.”

“Geez, headed to the window?”

“Yeah, found jammed.”

“So, we’ve _got_ to do an EVP session there right.”

“Oh, Yangyang, please. As if there was ever another option.”

“Shall we head there right now?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

_Creaking footsteps. Slight humming. Nervous tapping of fingers against held hands, outside of frame._

“Is this a family portrait?”

“It might just be an engagement picture. You see the tall guy, right here? This is the man of the hour. And right here is-“

_A SHRIEKING wind. The jump, clattering of two bodies shocked and unprepared. Breathing much louder, much more careful. The wind lasted barely a second._

“ _Holy shit_ , Yangyang, why did that sound so much like a scream.”

 _Nervous laughter_ , “Fuck, that really got me for a second.”

“Oh my god, oh my god,” _paired laughter_ , “The acoustics of this house are killer, no wonder it’s called haunted.”

“No shit dude, that was spooky.”

 _Muffled shuffling footsteps_.

“But we should probably move on, right?”

“Yeah, yep. Let’s go. EVP!”

“Whoo!”

_Quiet, whispers._

“That was actually scary as shit.”  
“More or less than mistaking a bunny for the Jersey Devil?”

“ _Fuck_ you Donghyuck.”

 _And playful laughter responds_.

**NOV 8 2019 21:01**

“What’s your name?”

 _Muffled static_.

“What is your name?”

_Scrambling, low notes called out in nothing meaningful._

“My name is Donghyuck, can you please tell me yours?”

_Static. A syllable._

“Why are you here?”

_A repetition. It’s nonsense._

“What is your purpose?”

_But it’s the same byte of noise._

“How long have you been here?”

_Again._

“What keeps you here?”

_Again._

“Please tell me, what’s your name?”

_Again._

“Could you tell me mine?”

_One last time. And the audio cuts out. The machine dead._

**NOV 8 2019 21:42**

“So, Yangles-“

“Oh I hated that.”

“-this is where that person fell victim to the ghost.”

_Reluctant steps leading up to an edge._

“Pushed from the third floor banister? That’s a long way down.”

“Yep, sure is.”

“But also not damningly a ghost. People trip all the time. I personally see myself stumbling and falling into the wrong place at my end of days.”

 _A snort_ , “Yes, but the witnesses describe him as being violently shoved from where I’m standing.”

“Hyuck. You’re like, at the wall.”

“I know, quite a distance right?”

 _The camera shakes with a shiver,_ ”That freaks me out just hearing about it.”

“Want to hear what makes it even worse?”

“Oh no.”

“It was John’s ex.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah. He was helping with crime scene cleanup. The sheriff and five other officers all saw it happen.”

“That’s really freaky. Like really freaky.”

“Apparently one of his friends that was on the force, the deputy, felt like he was getting pulled as well, but they all left the house soon after to rush the guy that was pushed to the clinic.”

“Damn. That’s heavy.”

_Whistling wind, creaking that’s almost rhythmic. But it can’t be footsteps._

“Not to be paranoid, but let’s go in a room, or something.”

 _Laughter, that almost seems forced_ , “Yeah, I like that plan.”

**NOV 8 2019 21:58**

“So this room is the parents bedroom.”

“They didn’t die up here, did they?”

“No, Harrison and Julia were found in the foyer. They were probably shot first.”

“So, why are we here. Do people see ghosts around here?”

“It’s been said that people often here pacing coming from the parent’s room, but the real hot spot is over here.”

_Door hinges creaking shut._

_A swinging open, yet somehow much more smooth, almost used._

“Is this the younger brother’s room?”

“Yep, people hear sobbing from in here.”

“The brother’s?”

“I mean, that’s the logical conclusion. Though some people claim the voice is much too deep to be the sixteen year old’s. So they think it might be the fiancé, lamenting the fact that he couldn’t protect him.”

“They were close?”

“Everyone in the family was said to be very happy together. The fiancé had moved in at the time of the murders. They died in his and John’s shared bedroom.”

“This is heavy, Hyuck. Wow.”

“I warned you, I totally got the fucking creeps while-“

_Abrupt cut off, a gasp._

“What’s wrong?”

“Did you feel that?”

“No?”

“I just had the most intense cold flash I’ve ever had in my life, holy fuck.”

“Are you okay, Hyuck?”

_Footsteps closer, reluctantly stopped a little too far away to be where he’d like to._

“Yeah, I’m fine, maybe just a little freaked out. I’ve never experienced something like that before.”

“Maybe lets head out?”

“Hyuck?”

“Yeah, let’s go explore a bit on our own. Wrap it up.”

**NOV 8 2019 22:08**

_The camera’s gaze hits the floor, two bodies stock still on a back set of stairs. In the distance, the sound of wind that hitches, sobs. Over and over again. The way the camera sits, the way they look at each other with blatant disbelief. Fear. This shot is an accident._

“Yangyang, why do I feel like this place is actually haunted?

**NOV 8 2019 22:11**

“Well okay then, my lovely camera. Looks like it’s just you and me now. Donghyuck’s gone off to look for the murderer on the first floor. Or maybe the parents. I don’t know. He’s clearly pawned the more haunted area off on me. Asshole.”

“So, here I am. Hanging around the second floor wings. Way too close to the bedroom of death. Not too eager to be near any windows though. The ghost seems a little push happy.”

“Anyone there? I’m really good at talking to people. I promise.”

“I swear, I’m a good time.”

_Wind whistling outside_.

“Wow I really hate that. This is going to be a long fifteen minutes.”

“You know, I’m a good guy, right? Not a murderer. Quite a nice fellow, I’d say. I love my mom and if I had a fiancé, I wouldn’t shoot him in the back of the head. I feel like that’s a big leap above the last person you had the pleasure of hanging around.”

_A loud, moaning creak._

“Hello?”

_And then another, shorter. And another and another. Rhythmic and consistent. Traveling above his head. One floor above pressing on what is the ceiling for him but is the floor of-_

“Fuck.”

_They start meandering away, but they are notably and identifiably what they seem to be._

“Holy shit, there’s someone-“

_And a shrill beeping, thumping steps of someone running nearby._

“ _Fuck_ , holy fuck.”

_This time it’s Yangyang running, sprinting, to steps that lead down. On the camera, the motion detector is beeping, flashing lights. Tripped. Tripped again as he sprints down without regard._

“Shit, _shit!_ Donghyuck! Where are you?”

_A dial tone to match the panicked running. No one picking up._

_Somewhere far off, a yell_.

 _Sprinting_.

“Where are you! Donghyuck!”

_A door slams. A dank mudroom is in view for a second. Donghyuck’s phone on the ground. Ringing._

_There’s door leading outside, barely in place for a second before the footage is outside. Another scream, this one with an abrupt cut off. From ahead._

“ _Donghyuck!”_

_The camera falls to the ground. It’s last shot left running as it faces another camera of the same handheld model fallen across the ground. A tripod not too far away. Yangyang disappears near trampled bushes, where scratch marks have been torn into the dirt. Where the drags marks are clear. Where that final yell of Yangyang’s name sounded from._

_Into the woods_.

—

The dogs barking are so fucking loud.

Yangyang tucks his head into his hands, massages his temples to fight off the _stressgriefangerfear_ headache thats racking him over and over and over again.

What the fuck is even going on.

“Mr. Liu?”

He looks up at the police officer. He’s got a nice voice; kind of low, intentionally calm.

“Yes?” he asks from where he’s sitting on the front steps of Seo manner.

“I’m sorry, I’m sure this is a rough time for you.”

Yangyang nods, “It’s okay.”

The officer looks at his feet for a second before he sits down beside him, “If you’d be okay with it, we’d like to get a statement from you?”

A statement.

Ah right.

Because he’s a witness. Not a victim.

He bites back that selfish instinct, the hurt he feels when he thinks of this being clinical, and nods. If he can’t help in any other way than this, it’s what he needs to do.

“Alright, thank you,” he tells him empathetically, his eyes too wide, “I can escort you back to the station.”

Yangyang levels his glance, “I’d rather stay here.”

“You’ve been outside for hours, sir, we need to get you somewhere warm.”

He looks at him, then back at the the other officers who are marking off the crime scene, the woods where the search party trampled off into, and then back to him.

“If they find him,” he leans forward, determined before Yangyang has even said anything, “I will get you back here in record time. The speed limit will mean nothing. I promise at the rate we’ll go, it’ll be no more than a five minute wait.”

The pause is a little longer than is comfortable. A dog barks off in the distance. His shoulders tense.

“I’ll come with you,” he tells him.

His returning smile is genial, “Alright, my car is over here.”

Yangyang shakes his head and regrets it immediately, his brain feeling battered and abused, “I can drive.”

The officer’s hand shoots out as he goes to stand up, “I’m sorry, sir, that’s really not allowed. You’re in a fragile state, whether you know it or not. We want to be safe here.”

He pauses. _Fragile state_. He’s not fragile. He’s not volatile. He’s-

A deep breathe in, “Okay. Okay I’ll come.”

The officer nods. Another dog barks far away in the woods. Where they’re searching for him. Donghyuck. Who’s gone. Missing. Taken.

Who Yangyang couldn’t get to. Not fast enough.

He stands up, pulling the thin blanket he was given tighter around his shoulders.

The officer leads him gently across the front lawn, “You can ride shotgun or be in the back if you’d like. I don’t mind.”  
He pulls open the side door, and the man slides in next to him a moment later.

They pull out slowly and the headlights cast a bright, sterile wash over the whole scene. The dogs, the police, the mansion. Their car, the yellow tape, the ambulance. Waiting.

Yangyang leans forward, bites his lip. His head is pounding. He won’t himself cry here. That would mean it’s over, that he’s gone for good, and he’s _not_.

“Are you alright, sir?”

They’re pulling out of the dilapidated country road that serves as a driveway and out onto something paved. He’s not looking back at Yangyang, his eyes focused on the road, but it’s apparent that he’s keeping his mind on the passenger side. He wonders if he’s dealt with this sort of thing before.

“What’s your name?” Yangyang asks.

He flicks the turn signal. They start heading towards the center of the small township they were visiting for this video. The streets, however, are still empty.

“Sicheng Dong,” he replies.

He reclines back a little bit, tries to relax his shoulders and his iron grip on his phone. He doesn’t quite manage either, “You can call me Yangyang, if you want. I’m not sure I like being called sir. I’m not that old yet.”

Sicheng snorts, “All right, if that’s what you want.”

The rest of the ride is quiet, Yangyang himself not having the initiative to talk and Sicheng only responding to what he’s willing to give. When they pull into the police station Yangyang feels the way dread sets over him. They way it presses on his shoulders and into his skin. It feels real now. It’s pain that isn’t just contained to that house now. It’s the whole world now.

“Are you okay?” Sicheng asks.

Yangyang shakes his head, feels it bang.

“Let’s go inside,” he suggests, “Come on, we’ll be warmer inside.”

He says nothing, nods not at all, but pushes open the door. Sicheng follows him, leading him into the building drenched in stark white. It hurts his eyes after being in dim light for so long. It’s not the only reason they hurt, sting, but it’s all he’s willing to confess to right now.

“Could I make a recommendation, Yangyang?”

He squints at him, “Of course.”

“Do you have anybody who would be able to come keep you company, anyone else who should be here?” he asks, “It’s going to be a long night, perhaps even a long few days. It always goes better when you’re not alone.”

Yangyang thinks about it. And it does sound good, reasonable. Other people should know anyway, need to know anyway.

He nods, “Yeah, I can get someone.”

“They’ll be able to make it down tonight?”

Yes. But everyone lives an hour away from here. And as much as Yangyang loves to piss Renjun off, he’s not sure how far past the line, _hey listen I know you have the sleep schedule of an eighty year old woman, but do you mind driving through the county tonight?_ truly is.

He confesses, “They won’t be here for awhile. We live far away.”

“That’s okay,” Sicheng reassures, “You can stay here for as long as you please after we get your statement.”

Wow, he’d almost forgotten, “I’ll call him first, so he can get on the way.”

He nods, “That’s fine, there’s a quiet hallway over there if you’d like.”

 _Nope_. No quiet. Not right now, “Is it okay if I call him here?”

Sicheng gives a thumbs up, “Of course,” and starts pulling up a recorder and a pad of paper.

Fuck.

The phone rings all the way through on the first call to Renjun, and the second, the third as well. Yangyang groans. Jeno’s choice two, but tragically out of state on some sort of family trip, won’t be home for three days. So, that leaves,

“ _What,_ ” Jaemin groans into the receiver, “ _Aren’t I your last choice for late night calls? I told everyone I don’t want to be involved in night out mishaps unless there’s no other options and I happen to know that you have quite a few friends, Mr. Yangyang Liu-"_

“Jaemin,” he cuts in.

There’s a pause on the other end, the rustling of sheets, “ _Wait, what’s wrong?_ ”

“I’m sorry, Renjun wouldn’t pick up and-“

“ _Wait, Yangyang, aren’t you guys filming tonight? What the hell is up?”_

“I’m going to send you an address, could you please come down? Be ready to stay the night down here.”

“ _You know I don’t have a car, dude.”_

“Then go get Renjun’s keys? And Renjun? You’re neighbors aren’t you? I need both of you anyway, and I know you have a key,” the stress starts to mount, is voice tense and stretching, close to breaking.

“ _Hey, calm down,_ ” on the other end he hears Jaemin pushing off his bed, the innocent flick of a light switch, “ _Okay, this sounds important, I’ll go break in. What the fuck have you two gotten into?”_

Yangyang pauses, doesn’t think about how Jaemin is framing the situation, “I don’t even know.”

Jaemin pauses too, and when his voice returns it’s soft in a way he’s only ever heard directed at friends on the precipice of a break, a fall. It’s never been him on the other end. Donghyuck has been the only one to ever see him so delicate, and even then it was never this bad.

“ _Please, tell me what’s going on?_ ”

Yangyang swallows, breathes in.

“I need to tell you later, I don’t want you to be stressed on the drive. ”

“ _Wait. What. Are you sure? Because I’m already really stressed._ ”

“Please trust me.” he begs into the phone.

“ _Where are you guys?_ ”

Yangyang flinches at the pronoun, bites the reaction back, “A police station.”

“ _Fuck_.”

“Can you come down? Please?” his voice takes on a tone close to a whisper.

“ _Yes, okay, sure. I’ll drag Renjun too. I’ll text you when we’re on the way._ ”

Yangyang breathes deeply, “Okay, thank you.”

“ _Please be safe. And be ready to explain this to us because I’m already so so worried.”_

“Sorry.”

“ _No, don’t be. I’ll see you soon._ ” A door closes on Jaemin’s side and there’s a fumbling of keys.

“Bye, Jaemin.”

The last thing he hears is a door swinging open, slamming a wall, and the call of, “ _Wakey wakey Huang, we’re having an emergency!_ ”

He hangs up, smiling reluctantly. He loves the friends he has, wouldn’t trade them for the world. He forwards Jaemin the address and turns back to Sicheng.

“Are you ready, Yangyang?” he asks.

He breathes in, “Sure,” then sits on the stool across from him, sinks into the seat and the blanket he’s still holding tight.

Sicheng flips on the recorder, reads off the date and his name, all the official things for documentation. Then he looks up.

“My first question is this,” his voice is low, deceptively calming, “What is you relationship with the victim?”

Yangyang swallows down the fear, the reluctance, the weight of tonight, answers, “I’m Donghyuck’s boyfriend.”

—

It’s edging a little past one when Jaemin finally sends him the text that gives him five minutes. The search party hasn’t returned yet, still scouring the forest for where Donghyuck and those who took him are.

Yangyang finished his statement awhile ago, letting go all the details of what happened that night. That they were filming in the abandoned house with the permission of the county, that they are professionals in the sense that they have done this before, no they don’t really believe in ghosts, and yes there was suspicious activity that night, but he only noticed the true presence of someone else at the very last moment. Yangyang gave chase, but was met with a stream and no further noise, or movement, or way to go. So he called the police.

“We put up camera’s all over the house,” he had told him as well, “they’ll probably be useful. We recorded almost everything after arriving.”

Sicheng had nodded, thanked him for his time, offered him some tea.

He’s been sipping the cold drink for awhile now.

His phone pings and he looks down at Jaemin’s text. Simple and plain in text. It worries him.

When Jaemin slams the door to the station open, he knows somethings gone awry.

Sicheng jumps to his feet along with another officer on duty. Yangyang waves them off, but Sicheng is reluctant to sit back down.

Jaemin marches right up to his face, Renjun tracking close behind. His eyes are red, and Yangyang can’t help but wonder, how does he _know_ -

“He’s _missing_?” Jaemin all but whispers.

Yangyang opens his mouth to give some sort of answer or to ask some sort of question, but all he finds is himself being pulled into Jaemin’s arms tightly.

“How did you find out?” he whispers into his shoulder.

“They pulled us over on the way in,” Renjun answers, “Checked the car, I think they have a checkpoint up looking in everyone’s.”

Yangyang nods into Jaemin’s shoulder, presses the dampness at his eyes into the warm cotton of his hoodie.

“C’mon,” Jaemin rubs up and down his back, “lets have a seat, tell us what happened.”

“Actually,” Sicheng interjects, “You’re Donghyuck Lee’s friends?”

Yangyang lifts his head and Renjun nods, “We are.”

“Can I ask you some questions,” Sicheng interjects, “Not out of suspicion, just in case there is something useful that you might not even consider.”

Jaemin seems reluctant, but Renjun steps forward easily, “Sure.”

The questions they’re asked are relatively similar to Yangyang, except more oriented towards the life they all shared instead of the disappearance itself.

“More often than not,” Sicheng explains, after Jaemin begins to get huffy at the question of they’re being any trouble in Donghyuck’s social life, “The person who abducted the victim is in their life beforehand. It’s not that we think that you guys don’t have a balanced life, it’s that we need to be sure.”

So they answer, and it is much to the tune of what Yangyang confessed. There had been nothing wrong. They were happy.

Afterwards, Yangyang gives the barebones of the story to Jaemin as they sit on chairs pushed together. Off to the side, Sicheng talks to the other officer in low tones, his eyes chained to the radio receiver the whole time. At some point a girl comes in to tag Sicheng off duty, but he turns down her offer to go home, instead watching over the three of them as the other officers begin going over paperwork. Renjun falls asleep, more of him sprawled across Jaemin than his own seat. And they wait, wait. The sun rises quietly. Without Donghyuck.

Jaemin is drifting when Yangyang presses his face against his shoulder, cries silently. He feels his fingers thread through his hair, pull him closer.

“What’s happening in there, huh? What’s on your mind?” Jaemin whispers.

“I let him go,” Yangyang confesses quietly.

“Don’t think like that, there wasn’t anything you could’ve done.”

But there was. There was someone _in_ the house. They knew there was, they could hear them, there was so much time to turn back, but Yangyang let them keep going. Ignored the risks. He hadn’t run fast enough. He heard footsteps and he didn’t start running at the drop of a pin. He remembers the fucking _gashes_ in the dirt at the edge of the forest. The drag marks from where Donghyuck, was taken. He remembers the panic because the boy he loved was screaming, yelling, and the last thing he got out was _Yangyang’s name_ before he didn’t say anything more, before, before, before Yangyang called the police. Before Yangyang couldn’t find him.

“I could’ve, Jaemin,” he whispers, “I could’ve just found him.”

—

They’re told to go home at the break of dawn.

The search party came up empty. No Donghyuck, dead or alive, and now they just need to review the evidence.

“What if you need us for anything? What if he shows up?” Jaemin argues, as quiet as he can with Renjun still on top of him.

“We’ll let you know, for now, it’s best that you all rest.”

Jaemin shakes his head, and Yangyang doesn’t like it either.

“Go home,” Sicheng commands softly from the side, “We’ll call you back when we need you. Leave it to us. We’re a small town, we’ve got nothing else going one. You’ve done all you can.”

So. They go home.

Yangyang stays at Renjun’s apartment, unwilling to go back to his and Donghyuck’s shared one for fear of what emotions that would bring to the surface. The next twenty four hours are hell, and it’s for one reason more than any other, the one Sicheng warned him of right before he slid into Renjun’s stick shift monstrosity.

“You said you have a pretty large online following, right?” he asked, “We put out a watch for Donghyuck, so just be aware that it probably won’t be long until that gets back to you.”

And oh boy, it was not long at all.

The first hits of it comes through about halfway through the ride, right about when people are starting to get up, commute to school and their jobs. Yangyang already keeps twitter notifications off, mutes all his tweets and never answers DMs, but when he opens it to check out a meme he wants to show Jaemin off his private’s bookmarks, the app crashes in seconds.

“Oh,” Jaemin says, having loaded his app too, “Maybe don’t log on right now, Yangyang.”

But he can’t help it.

There’s already a twitter moment about it, which is probably why most of twitter seems to be knocking down his mentions.

_YouTuber Donghyuck Lee Abducted._

He clicks it, staring at the bright smile of his boyfriend in the header.

_A police alert went out late Friday night, stating the 24 year old internet celebrity had been taken while filming with his co-star Yangyang Liu at an abandoned property near the county line. Fans of the duo, both members of the rising Dream Team media collective, have been expressing their distress on media in reaction to a lack of answers._

Yangyang swallows, starts scrolling.

The fan response section is, in a way, oddly infuriating. Some of them are sympathetic, sending well wishes and reminders that while they all care, there are people hurting more. He doesn’t mind those. It’s when it gets to the people posting GIFS and pictures of him smiling, laughing, and demanding updates on their, _their_ , Donghyuck that he starts getting upset. When he sees the tweets tagging him, asking for what happened, how he feels, is he _okay_ , he starts scrolling faster.

He stops at the _News Coverage_ heading, slowly shocked.

Rage can be paralyzing, a fact he didn’t know until his eye flicked over the first headline.

_Fame Spelunking Claims It's First Casualty: Why Donghyuck Lee's Disappearance Should Be a Cautionary Tale for All Aspiring “Internet Talent”._

_YouTuber Donghyuck Lee Goes Missing While Trespassing for Paranormal Investigation Show._

_YouTube’s Next Scandal? Internet Personality Kidnapped While Filming for Channel._

_OP ED: Donghyuck Lee’s Abduction Was Inevitable._

Yangyang, dumb as it is, can’t stop himself from reading. Quietly. Shaking.

“Are you okay?” Renjun asks, glancing at him in the rearview mirror.

He clicks his phone off. Stares at the black screen. Absorbs the blame. Where the facts where invented. The way it’s not journalism, it’s just for clicks and outrage. It hits him just how subhuman people can view those they don’t know.

“No,” Yangyang whispers.

He’d bring it up and try to vent it, but he’ll wait. Renjun and Jaemin will get to it too. They’re all a part of the same bigger team. The same idea. They’ll probably be dragged into it just as much because they’re also in their self-made network. Even though they have their own channel, it’s known they’re all friends.

The next wave of fame complicating it is something he should’ve seen coming from the moment it was smeared across twitter, but he couldn’t put it together then.

Jeno calls first.

Jaemin is lying spread across Renjun’s couch, his eyes fluttering. Yangyang, despite the all nighter, can’t sleep. His phone starts blaring Jeno’s ringtone, and it’s the only reason his heart doesn’t fill with adrenaline the way every vibration of his phone does now.

But it does make his heart drop.

He picks up, and before he has the chance at an explanation, “ _Why did I find out Donghyuck’s missing through twitter?_ ”

“Jeno,” Yangyang replies, “I’m so sorry.”

“ _I’m coming home._ ”

“Wait,” he stands to his feet, anxious.

“ _Like, I am physically on the road right now Yangyang. You can’t change this._ ”

Yangyang nods, shakes his head to clear it, tells him in a way he can actually hear, “Okay.”

There’s a long pause on Jeno’s end. It makes him rock back and forth slightly as he stands.

“ _You don’t sound like yourself at all._ ”

“Why would I?” Yangyang snaps back.

“ _That’s a little better_.” Jeno tells him, and then sighs, “ _You need to call everyone else. They won’t be asleep for much longer, Mark in particular, and he’s the person you need to tell the most.”_

Yangyang rubs his face, “Okay.”

“ _And have you called his parents?_ ”

“I don’t have their number anyway. They changed it when they moved back to Korea.”

“ _Okay, well just hope they still don’t use twitter at all._ ”

There’s silence across the line. Yangyang doesn’t know what to say, and guilt sits on his chest like a weight when he thinks of what Jeno must’ve felt, but he isn’t quite sure how he would’ve made it better.

“ _Go call our friends, okay? I’m not mad at you. Maybe a little mad at Renjun and Jaemin, because I’m sure they were in the know first. But not you. I can’t imagine what that would’ve been like."_

“Horrible.” Yangyang tells him, “I’ve never been so afraid, Jeno.”

Jeno’s quiet on the other end, all he can hear is the ambient noise of his car buzzing down whatever road he’s on, much too fast for what it should be.

“ _It’s going to be okay_.”

—

Yangyang realizes in those next few days, nothing about an investigation is meant to be comforting.

The comfort he does get comes from his friends as he hops from couch to couch, never in one place too long. It comes from Jaemin making him breakfast no matter which blankets he's sleeping under. It's there in the moments Yangyang can't sleep no matter how little he has before, and Hendery puts his full weight across him to pin him into surrendering motion. It's Lucas and Mark holding his hands when the police take evidence from their apartment. It's Jeno giving up the clips from his ASMR show and letting Yangyang edit his videos for next week instead of thinking. It's all the small moments where he can't fall apart because the moment the inertia of grief tries to drag him down, he is met by an array of arms catching him close to their chests.

The police build the investigation as the hours since Donghyuck’s disappearance tick on, and Yangyang feels alone in the scream that still rings in his ears. No further updates on what this should have never been.

He's saddest when he wakes up. Every single time it’s the same horrible thing: the feeling of what he doesn't wake up to. On his smaller and more empty sleeping space, it hits him so softly but with an intensity that seems to hurt. In the mornings it's not so bad, because at least there will be someone there to smile and ease him with their own worry. It's the middle of the night that torments him. Or lets him torment himself.

 _"Yangyang!"_ the Donghyuck of so long ago and yet not far at all calls on one of their old videos, _"Get back here! I won't let Bigfoot get you at this rate, I'll kill you myself!"_

 _"Best of luck, short stuff!"_ he had yelled back, and he smiles with a knife wrenching his chest open as Donghyuck's camera shows him sprinting after Yangyang through the night trees.

They cut to them making the cryptid calls together, Donghyuck mocking his call and asking if he was trying to imitate a horny ape. Yangyang remembers cutting the part that comes in between. Of when Donghyuck caught Yangyang. Ran him into a tree. Laughed as Yangyang leaned in to kiss him. Shrieking and putting up a play fight before inviting him into his space on his own account. Stupid and happy in the faraway woods of the Pacific Northwest.

It's the moments like that, when no one is around to see him succumbing to the pit Donghyuck has left behind, that the sadness grabs at him. The old videos, the candidness. It's a curse. He has five years of love recorded on dark nights and challenge videos, Q&A's and thank you messages. He spends hours wrapped in Donghyuck’s smile and his playful voice. The persona he spun for the camera that no one knows is in love with him, but Yangyang can see it in his boyfriend’s eyes every time they look above the lens to where he was holding it. He sees how his pupils widen, his smile softens. He remembers how it feels in person. Misses having the love he knows is there, exists out of frame, meeting his eyes.

Yangyang cries a lot on restless nights. And When Hendery comes to visit in daylight, sees the dark circles, he pins him to the couch until his warm and slightly too heavy weight puts him to sleep.

He sometimes dreams of Donghyuck running through those Pacific trees. But instead of chasing him with love and playfulness, he sprints with fear, desperation. Eyes wide and afraid as he screams his name, as clear as he did in closer forests.

—

"Thank you for coming down," Sicheng greets him, at the police station, the fourth day since Donghyuck went missing.

"It's fine, please don't worry about it."

Renjun's presence is still beside him, calming. He's so glad he agreed to come, to stay.

"Come back this way, I'll show you where we'll be watching the evidence."

The back rooms are quieter. They have the footage from Donghyuck's camera pulled up on the monitor.

There's another officer in the room, and he smiles as Renjun and Jaemin enter the room. He's broad and handsome, somewhat intimidating as he offers his hand.

"I'm Jaehyun Jung," he introduces himself with a warm tenor, "You're Yangyang, right?"

Yangyang shakes his hand and nods his head, then abruptly gestures to his side, "This is Renjun, he's a friend of Donghyuck's and mine."

Jaehyun smiles and nods, taking a seat in front of the small monitor, offering Renjun and Yangyang the seat. Sicheng stands strong and silent behind them.

"We've increased the quality of these frames, and we think it’s clear enough to make an ID on the man in the video."

Yangyang looks at him with determination set in his eyes. He came here to make an ID. To recognize the monster that was there that night. Renjun had given him a pep talk the entire drive down, bracing him for seeing the events again. From Donghyuck's eyes.

"Are you prepared to watch this, Yangyang?" Sicheng asks from behind them.

He nods, "You told me that most kidnappings are perpetrated by someone in our life, and I’m willing to do anything if it means I get to tell you who was there."

Yangyang casts a glance back and finds Sicheng wearing an impressed expression, admiration soft around his pity.

"Here's what we have," Jaehyun declares, mousing over the play button and starting the footage Yangyang is prepared to be torn apart by.

It's their shitty night vision, that's probably why increasing the quality of the stills was so important. Donghyuck steps into the mudroom on the camera. He's mumbling to himself in his own strangely endearing way, but even now Yangyang can hear the edge of panic that was present that night.

 _"Ahh yes a nice entrance space. So terrifying,"_ he cracks, _"it reminds me of the living room in our apartment, though Yangyang usually leaves it dirtier than this."_

Yangyang smiles the smallest amount at his antics. He wishes he had gotten to hear this without the dread that hangs over his head.

A sudden pause. Donghyuck's camera lingers on the windowed door as his boyfriend pauses. His stomach drops.

“ _What the fuck_ ,” Donghyuck says, but not panicked, not rushed. Almost awestruck.

The camera approaches the door slowly, as if Donghyuck is hesitant but still willing to look. The camera pans up, and Yangyang sees a flash of dark clothes through the glass before it blips out of existence. Like an edit, a cut.

It confuses Yangyang, but the answer to the reality of it lies in how Donghyuck reacted.

“ _Holy shit!_ ” he yelps, pushing open the door and stepping out into the empty back lawn, spinning around as if looking for something.

From inside the house, thumping, footsteps and the far off beeping of the motion censor.

“ _Yangyang?_ ” Donghyuck yells, and turns to the house. Then abruptly still.

There camera shows a man’s body moving towards his boyfriend, and Yangyang feels his breathing speed with the distress that Donghyuck displays in the slight shaking of the camera, in the pitch of his voice.

“ _How?_ ” he asks, quiet and in disbelief.

It sounds like he knows this person, as though it shouldn’t be real. It makes Yangyang’s heart drop.

From in the house, Yangyang calls Donghyuck’s name. The body darts forward. Donghyuck screams as he drops the camera, tries to run.

“Can you fast forward,” Yangyang requests, “Or just mute it, please.”

Jaehyun obliges immediately, muting the footage without a word. The camera is still now, sideways on the ground capturing Donghyuck’s kidnapping. It’s grainy, focused on the strands of grass peaking into the frame as opposed the the tree line. But Jaehyun pauses the footage, as the man knocks Donghyuck down, dragging him despite how he clutches the ground. Yangyang leans forward, looking at the higher resolution frame, squinting at the face of the monster.

It’s familiar in the most tangential way possible, and it raises a slow burning frustration that Yangyang has never felt before. This is a face he’s seen before, but will never be able to put a name too. Tall and lean, dark hair that looks soft and well coiffed, falling into a young face of high cheekbones and full lips.

“Do you recognize him?” Jaehyun inquires.

Yangyang shakes his head, and both Jaehyun and Sicheng sigh, “But he is so familiar,” Yangyang corrects, “I must have seen him before, but I have no idea who he is.”

“I’ve never seen him,” Renjun adds, “He wasn’t in my life, at least.”

“But it sounds like he was in Donghyuck’s,” Yangyang adds.

Jaehyun nods, “That’s what we thought, but we have no way to ID him. We’ve run his face through facial recognition, no hits at all. It’s no one the system has been acquainted with.”

Yangyang shakes his head, “Damnit.”

“We’ll be putting out a wanted notice for his description though, we were only waiting to see if you had a name for the face,” Jaehyun tells him, before spinning, “This is good, it’s lucky his camera caught this.”

Yangyang shrugs, hard to see anything as lucky.

Sicheng steps closer, and Yangyang tilts his head up to look at him. His lips are pressed together, it’s obvious he wants to say something. Yangyang looks at him, tilts his head down to implore him to let him know.

Sicheng says, “If you’d like, there is one more thing you could do to help.”

A sharp stab of hope sets his posture up straight, “ _How?_ ” he rushes out.

“A technique in kidnappings, usually in ransom cases but not always,” he pauses, as if trying to find a palatable way to put it, “is to try to humanize the victim, get the perpetrator to empathize with them, so that they don’t hurt them.”

“So?” Yangyang asks.

“So, you have a huge online platform. You haven’t made a statement right?”

Yangyang nods, trying to follow.

“Anything you say right now will go viral,” Winwin concludes, “Use it to show who he was, to ask for him back. If there’s the slightest chance that will sway who this is, it’s worth taking.”

Yangyang pauses, thinks about it. The aftertaste of the thought it bitter, wanting.

“Is that all I can do?” his voice is soft.

“I don’t want to sugarcoat this. I’m sorry,” Jaehyun leans forward, and Yangyang and Renjun both turn, “this may be blunt, but we’re past the critical period. Anything is enough, Yangyang, and the power you have in doing that is something a lot of people with missing loved ones would’ve killed to have.”

Yangyang looks at him, the pleading in his eyes. It takes a second to talk himself into it, to tell himself that this isn’t something to feel helpless over, this is power he gets to hold in his hands. It feels so little, but at least it is something.

Renjun reaches over to squeeze his hand, and it gives him the strength to tell the officers that he will.

—

Renjun and Jaemin get theirs up first, a full eight hours before anyone else, which is a testament to how strong he believes these friends are. They pull their editor, Jungwoo, into the video as well, and they talk for a long fifteen minutes about stories of their friend. Sitting in Renjun’s done up kitchen, designed for their chaotic cooking channel, it’s dark in atmosphere but the stories are uplifting.

Jeno got his out second. Mark, a friend from college and infrequent cameo on everyone's channel, sitting somberly in frame as he also gives an account of Donghyuck; one that sticks with it's length, it's intimacy. He's known Donghyuck the longest out of everyone, and all the stories of when he was small make Yangyang tear up. He hasn't spent so much time with Mark in the days since Donghyuck has disappeared. It's not that he doesn't want to, doesn't have the time to. It's that they both know that they just can't. Every time they're close it's a mutual understanding that they're both hurting too much to hold each other up, too fragile on their own time to handle coping with each other. He was the one who called Donghyuck's parents, and the pain of that phone call is one of the last points he touches on. Donghyuck's mom's message makes Yangyang slam the spacebar before the screen can fade to black, empty all along the inside.

 _"My son has so much left to love, so much time here to spend,"_ Mark reads in Korean, and Yangyang relies on the subtitles Mark himself probably edited in to understand, _"Please bring him back to his family, we hurt more than words can say."_

The most chaotic of them go last, and it's unsurprisingly the most uplifting out of all of them. Chenle, Jisung, Lucas, and Hendery's channel has never been anything but slapstick vlogger comedy, and it's amazing how that transfers even into their sentimental message. It's rather short, but very sweet. Yangyang's thankful that someone was able to be positive. Most of it is candid clips of Donghyuck they've collected in their college years and the brief time some of them have been outside of it. Mainly prank clips they didn't use for their channel. Yangyang can't help but laugh at the one where Chenle and Jisung pour ice water onto a sleeping Donghyuck during finals week. He doesn't wake up, and the expression of unrefined horror Chenle and Jisung both shoot the camera makes Yangyang break every single time. It's the best he's felt since he went missing.

And that leaves Yangyang. In front of this camera. Alone.

He's sitting on the floor of Donghyuck and his shared apartment with Jeno's fancy camera and ASMR microphone ahead of him. All of their filming equipment is still in evidence. It's painfully different from anything else he's filmed in every way that matters. And in that, he's lost.

Yangyang had checked Twitter before he sat down, that itself had been a mistake. Right now, all he can think about is how many people are asking after him, _demanding_ after him now that he's the only one left that hasn't made a single comment. Not a tweet, not a video, not a post. No pictures, no voice, no pleas. Yangyang has finally committed to an answer, but now he doesn't even know what that answer should be.

Sicheng and Jaehyun had told him afterwards to just be honest, say what he would say if he was staring down the man from the forest. If he could persuade him face to face, what would be the parts of Donghyuck he thinks would save him.

Yangyang leans forward and turns on the camera.

One take only. That's all he can manage. No editing. Raw upload.

That's the plan, at least.

So he should start talking.

Soon.

Now.

Anytime.

"I love Donghyuck Lee," Yangyang says, because that's all he can think to say, the thing that keeps him up at night that tears at the inside of his chest and across his distressed heart.

He scratches the back of his head, "I'm not sure that anyone will be surprised by that."

The camera is a different kind of unanswering than he's used to. His heater grumbles in the background. It's so empty in this room. Yangyang mentions that out loud.

"This is supposed to be something to help whoever needs to, wants to, understand him, but everyone else has done such a great job that I don't know what else I could say that would add some kind of dimension to him. He's wonderful."

Yangyang looks into the lens, "I've had the great pleasure of being able to be with him for, what, five years now? Some ridiculously long amount of time."

He pauses. Then suddenly, he's laughing sadly, "Fuck, it feels so weird to admit that. To say that to a camera that's recording. We've always wanted to do it. We were gonna do some shitty boyfriend tag or something equally tacky to celebrate five million. But, well I guess," he sighs, "we've passed five million with this, but it doesn't feel right. He was really looking forward to this."

Yangyang stops again, his eyes fall on his hands. He interlaces them sadly.

"I love him so much. I don't know what else to tell you. The night he was taken, hearing that happen, looking for him- I've never been in so much pain until then. Knowing he was scared, alone. I hope, I want everyone to know that it wasn't easy. That the memory of that evening is going to be with me for a long time."

He looks back at the camera and takes a deep breath in, "I want him back. I want him back so badly. I want my co-editor, my karaoke partner, my _boyfriend_ back. And if you're watching this, and you can help us all in anyway to bring him home, please do. Please, please, please."

What he wants to say, the thought that always pairs with the desire to bring him home, is bleak. He starts to reach forward to turn off the camera, to leave it unsaid, but his finger only hovers over the button. Sicheng and Jaehyun's words hang heavy in his mind, _be honest_.

His eyes don't rise up again, he doesn't raise his voice. If it's heard, it's heard. It doesn't matter much to him, he just longs for it to be said. To someone, anybody, it's been a lonely thought for too long.

"Please," he whispers, repeats, "I don't want the last time I hear him to be when he was that afraid."

—

And perhaps, this is where the story starts to shift, become something new entirely. Yangyang had felt bleak when uploaded _Donghyuck Lee.mp4_ , not believing that it had the ability to do anything to change the place he's found himself in. It's unknown to him then, but that’s truly not the case at all.

Sicheng was right, it does go viral.

Their channel had never topped trending before, but his video sits at number one for an unsettlingly long time. The comments that pour in are hard to read, most of them some kind of conflicted elation at the revelation that one of YouTube's more dynamic duos is together and the sadness of hearing someone near mourning their lover. Yangyang gets it, he just doesn't want to read it.

The take on the news, drama, and reactions swings different. All of his recommended videos are commentary on what has been revealed. He watches one only, a fan video with a thumbnail of Donghyuck looking into the camera, undoubtedly one in Yangyang's hands. The title: _Hindsight is 20/20_. It hurts more seeing someone else point out the loving looks, the moments hidden in plain sight. It all makes him wonder if he's made a mistake.

He opens his DMs for the first time in days. The narrative changes.

He scrolls through many and many, his read receipts off from years ago. None of them seem helpful. Most of them are condolences, some assholes send him nothing kind for hiding their relationship, but most are nice. None are detailed, none of them are sightings or details that could further the case. Except for one.

Yangyang is barely above skim reading when he sees the message, _hey. this is going to sound so stupid. but i think i can help._

Yangyang pauses, adrenaline blasting his system with the word help. He keeps reading.

_i’m sending this here and not the police cuz tbh, it might be a little insensitive. but idt i could live with myself if i didn't send it._

_i saw your video, and idk you guys all too well but like, based off of what you do and where your bf went missing, you guys were at seo manor right? i live nearby, i know that place well and like._

_okay I’m just going to link this here bc i saw the police release of the footage on ur camera and i know what i think but i know it doesnt make any sense at all and im sorry._

_its just like, way too wacky for me to ignore._

And then there’s a link.

Yangyang clicks it, reluctantly. It’s not the first time he’s gotten strange links in his DMs. You never really know with these things.

It’s nothing objectively awful. But it’s also the worst thing he’s ever seen.

All it seems to be is a lackluster wiki page titled, _Hauntings and the Unexplained._ From the looks of it, this entry is very detailed. It’s an article about the Seo Manor haunting, and the reason why this person sent it is immediately apparent.

And it stops Yangyang’s heart.

There’s an image in the top right corner for the page. A small thumbnail, nothing that should be as horrifying as it is. It’s an old photograph, probably recovered from a county historical society captioned, _John “Johnny” Seo_. The killer in the house, someone’s who’s been dead for a century, a full hundred years.

A face Yangyang saw in a dilapidated portrait on a Seo Manner wall.

A face Yangyang saw on Donghyuck’s handheld.

The face that dragged him into the woods.

—

There’s a pause in Yangyang’s mind. A brief time where he has to ask himself, _do I really believe this_?

Because they haven’t, have never. Yangyang and Donghyuck had started their YouTube channel sophomore year because they wanted to take the piss out of the supposed haunting of the top floor of their student center. It went unexpectedly viral on campus, and they stuck primarily to that content since then. It’s fun, mindless. Never anything they seriously believed.

And yet.

It takes Yangyang less than an hour of sitting in the dark of Renjun’s kitchen, wide awake after waking up panicked, to cave into temptation. He takes care to research every nook and cranny of the internet that he can, to see if maybe this person just edited the article to have the face of this man, but he reverse image searches the photo. It’s nowhere else but there. And the answer to it’s origins seem to trace back to whoever sent this message, the vague moon emoji of their name giving no clues of who @h0n3st is.

He sends them a message, _what else can you tell me?_

And he’d like to say he slept in the time he was waiting for this person to answer him anything, but he mostly spends the next few hours till Renjun wanders into the kitchen staring absently at his phone as he waits for anything at all to change.

“You sleep?” Renjun asks, clicking the coffee machine on.

“What do you think?” Yangyang replies, locking his phone for the first time that morning.

Renjun sighs, not even pity, just disapproval. His best friend slides down to the floor, his legs stretched out far in front of him.

“What’s on your mind? Is it the video?” Renjun tilts his tired head onto Yangyang’s shoulder.

“You awake enough for this, Renjun? Gonna fall asleep as I spill my heart out?”

Renjun hits his leg, “You should be grateful I’m doing this before coffee, it’s a sign of how much I love you,” he checks the time and groans, “And hurry if you want any privacy, Jeno and Jaemin are coming over soon to attack us.”

“Of course,” Yangyang snorts, “When are you gonna let them move in?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Renjun quips, “Why do I bother? This is all I get for being nice. I can’t believe it.”

But he pauses, leans more heavily on Yangyang, making it apparent that this is the time to talk if he wants someone to listen.

Yangyang opens his phone, closing Twitter and moving to Safari, the tab of the wiki still up. He hands it to Renjun wordlessly, and he takes it in curious silence.

The dull tap of Renjun’s fingers across the screen is the only noise in the room for awhile, and Yangyang waits with his breath stuck somewhere in the space between his lungs and the open air. Renjun lifts his head and turns to him, it takes courage to meet his eyes. They’re shocked.

“What the fuck?” is all he says.

Yangyang shrugs, “Someone sent it to me on Twitter. It’s what-“

“Yeah, what you were shooting for that night, that’s why I’m saying, _what the fuck_.”

“I don’t know, but that’s him right? That’s who you saw on the footage too?”

Renjun sighs, rubs his face, “Yeah. Yeah, it definitely was. It’s just, it could be a trick or something? It’s not possible.”

“This photo isn’t anywhere else on the internet, it’s only here.”

“Then how come he was familiar to Donghyuck? How come he had seen him before?” Renjun asks.

Yangyang pauses. _How_ indeed?

“There was a portrait on the wall, that’s how I had seen him. But even then, Donghyuck had known who was who, so I’m not really sure,” Yangyang breathes out, confused.

He grabs his phone back from Renjun, scanning at the page again as Renjun searches for some kind of answer within himself. He skims over it again, looking for anything. At the bottom, there’s only one person listed as having contributed to the article. Below that, a lone comment on the unattended wiki, but it makes Yangyang’s heart drop.

_This is very well researched, how’d you get all this info?_

The username is fullllsun. That was what Donghyuck always used for private accounts. No one he doesn’t know could fake that.

The author had responded, _It’s a local haunting, and a bit of passion project for me. I’ve been researching it on and off for a few years now._

And Donghyuck had replied, _That’s so cool! Hey, would you want to be interviewed for a video I’m doing on the mansion?_

And the writer, xdejun, hadn’t replied. Perhaps too shy, or perhaps he just hadn’t gotten around to it. Donghyuck _had_ been here, had seen this. He would’ve known this man’s face, something that would describe his silent awe and shock when he saw him that night. The way he was familiar. Donghyuck would’ve thought he was seeing a ghost.

Maybe he had actually seen a ghost.

“Renjun,” Yangyang whispers, handing the phone to him with a quiet urgency, “Look.”

He reads it quickly, shaking his head at the end as he hands his phone back to him, “Wow.”

They look at each other in silent disbelief. The coffee machine dings in the back as it finished brewing. Neither of them moves.

“It can’t be real, right?” Yangyang asks, his pride, rationality, not letting him give it up, “Like, it just can’t be.”

“Well,” Renjun shoots back, surprisingly open, “What do you think?”

And the door to the answer, what he’s been thinking on since he first saw it, swings wide. But the other side is terrifying, unthinkable.

“What if it is?” his voice at such a tone Renjun has to lean forward to hear him, “If it’s real, and I let it go, then what happens? No one else will look, Renjun, and, and-“

“If something happens and you didn’t try,” Renjun completes, “Then you lose him again. Then you think it would be your fault, again.”

“It would be my fault,” Yangyang affirms.

Renjun shakes his head, “It’s never been your fault,” and he presses on, not giving Yangyang the space to butt in, “Are you gonna go and try to find out more then?”

Yangyang nods, “Yes.”

Renjun nods back, “Okay, well then-“

“Hel _lo_ everyone!” a door slams open

Renjun rolls his eyes, shakes his head, “Always impeccable timing. We can talk more later, I promise.”

Yangyang smiles, and Renjun gets up off the floor, yelling an, “ _In here, idiots_!” before he starts pouring coffee.

Yangyang stays on the floor, staring aimlessly at his boyfriend’s old comments and remaining still as Jaemin ruffles his hair while chatting with Renjun. He looks up briefly, catching Jaemin’s smile before he returns to conversation with Renjun and Jeno, who’s very awkwardly trying to determine if he can get away with moving his hand from the counter to Renjun’s waist. Yangyang looks away, back to his phone, opens Twitter.

Nearly drops his phone.

The person has responded, and Yangyang hears the thumping of blood in his ear as he reads.

_anything really. i want to help in any way i can._

_are you in any way local? my great-uncle owns an inn down here, we can put you up for a few nights if you want to come down and see what i have. i was the one who made that page. i want to do everything i can._

And Yangyang can’t hesitate in typing, _i’ll be down later today_.

—

Renjun drives him down alone. Neither of them talk much on the ride. Yangyang has packed clothes for the week, and he’s not opposed to finding a laundromat to make them last longer. They arrive around the time is starting it’s decent into sunset territory, making the small inn’s lights just slightly misplaced in the soft light of the very late afternoon.

It’s more of a motel, if anything. A small cottage surrounded by stretches of rooms that lead directly outside. It has a soft yellow exterior, that of candlelight, and the remains of flowers that must bloom during the warm season. It looks both like home and a passing haven. It’s beautiful.

There’s a guy their age sitting on the bench outside, bleach blonde hair and a thin nose ring. He perks up as their car idles before shutting off. He’s wringing his hands, clearly nervous, but still jumps up when Yangyang steps out of the car.

Yangyang points at him, “Dejun Xiao?”

He nods, a smile racked with nerves, “And you’re Yangyang?”

“Yep, I would be.”

Dejun vaguely looks like he wants to go in for a hug, but he holds back before he commits to the gesture. It makes Yangyang grin.

He reaches out, “Here, let me grab your bag.”

Yangyang waves him off, “It’s alright, I got it,” and he makes sure to meet his eyes when he says, “It’s nice to meet you, by the way.”

Dejun looks strangely surprised by his politeness, “It’s nice to meet you too. Um, I can show you inside, get you your key and everything,” he looks up at Renjun, “Are you staying too?”

His friend shakes his head, crosses his arms, “Nope, I’m just endorsing this loser.”

Yangyang looks back at Renjun, prepared to tease back at him, but changes his mind and says sincerely, “Thanks, Renjun.”

He holds up a hand dismissively, opens the driver’s side door, “It’s fine, call me when you want me to come get you.”

The car door slams shut, and Yangyang waves goodbye. He turns around as Renjun pulls out, giving Dejun his full attention.

“Key?” Yangyang asks, and Dejun is immediately set into motion.

He leads him inside the main house. The bell above the door tinkles as it swings open, and the warm light of the living room that serves as a lobby makes the whole thing very homey. The walls are painted yellow, plants lining every surface that doesn’t have books, or candles, or complimentary coffee that must’ve gone cold so far into the evening. Behind the large antiquated writing desk that must be a reception sits a man who’s obviously well into age but has done so with grace. His hair is greying but toned lavender, and his eyes have wrinkles but a youthfulness in their pupils. He looks up, unamused and neutral, but he gives Dejun a slight smile as he sees him.

“You’re here for the room I so generously set aside?” the man asks, teasing and lilting.

Dejun pouts, “Oh come on-“

“It’s okay, I’m teasing you. Kun told me about it earlier,” the man shoots Yangyang a rather assessing look before pausing, and saying, “I hope you find something that helps during your stay here.”

Yangyang locks up at the well wish, the desperation that sits in his chest, hungry and ready to pounce at any point, seizing control.

“Thank you,” he manages to reply.

He looks him up and down again before nodding sharply and handing a brassy key to Dejun. His new friend takes it, and nods with great exaggeration.

“Thank you, so much,” and it’s playful and sarcastic.

The old man swats at him, “Get out of here.”

Dejun smiles and starts walking, beckoning Yangyang to follow. He does, reluctantly stepping out of the warm environment. He looks over his shoulder once before the door closes, finds the man staring back.

It feels significant.

“Is that your great-uncle?” Yangyang asks as Dejun walks him away from the building, towards the furthest away doors.

Dejun shakes his head, “No, it’s not. My great-uncle’s name is Kun, he’s another one of the owners.”

“So he’s one of the owners?” they arrive in front of a door.

“Yeah, his nickname’s Ten. My great-uncle, him, and another guy named Doyoung all own it together. They’ve been ‘roommates’ for like forty five years now,” Dejun abuses a liberal amount of air quotes before using the key to unlock the door, “I’m surprised most of my family hasn’t caught on like I have. Anyways, it’s none of my business. They’re happy enough.”

They step inside, and Yangyang softens at the interior. It’s as homey as the house, except a little more tacky. Yellow sheets, green floral wallpaper, dark wood furniture. The lighting is dim, and theres a singular piece of chocolate on the bed, glinting in the warm light.

Donghyuck would’ve loved it here.

“Thank you for all this, Dejun,” Yangyang says sincerely.

Dejun has this wonderful look of slight surprise on his face as he answers, “Oh. It’s fine. I’m just-” he sighs, “Well I’m glad I can help and I’m glad that, that you’ll let me. I’m sure it’s a bit hard to take seriously.”

Yangyang shrugs, “I mean, I won’t lie, it is. But it’s all I have, it’s all anyone has. And the police won’t believe this anyway, so. I have to.”

Dejun nods, “I’ll take you to the library tomorrow, they have a bunch of old newspapers from the local printer. I get a lot of my stuff from there.”

Yangyang raises an eyebrow, “Is it worth looking at if you’ve seen it front and back?”

He shrugs in response, “I figure you’d like to see yourself, and maybe you’ll find something I haven’t.”

“Alright,” Yangyang lays his bag down next to the bed, “I’ll see you when? Around nine o’clock?”

“Yeah, I’ll DM you or something.”

Yangyang smiles, “Sounds good.”

They say their goodbyes, Dejun handing him the key before he heads out the door. Yangyang begins to close it behind him when suddenly Dejun makes a full turn and comes back to the room.

“Hold on one second!” Dejun hollers, before running off.

Yangyang slowly opens the door again, stepping out a bit to see Dejun run to his car to quickly unlock it and grab something within. He sprints back, seemingly a book in hand.

Dejun pushes it into his hands, slightly out of breath when he explains, “It’s nothing much, everything helpful is too old to be checked out, but it’s a county history book. It has a little bit of context on everything. If you wanted to get started or anything tonight, I figured you’d appreciate it.”

Yangyang pulls it close to his chest, lets the small amount of release he feels at the ability to finally _do_ something take over his face.

“Thank you, Dejun,” he tells him, “I really do appreciate it.”

—

That night, he becomes an expert on this sleepy town.

The Seo family was an old one, settling down long before anyone else did in this area. They built a town prospering off of lumber and transcendentalists looking to reunite their souls with one of the many waterfalls strewn throughout the dense brush. They were fast to money, and John was set to take over the family business of selling timber and overseeing the local speakeasies after he married his fiancé. However, as they plainly put it, they all died in their home in the early twentieth century.

He reads about the geography, the people, the traditions. He’s laboring over details, anything and everything that could help. And to him, it is anything and everything that could help.

He falls asleep when the first birds are beginning to wake up, and he does so on his side, the book open before him as he curls up on the queen bed, only taking up enough space for one person.

—

The library is on the edge of the township, and clearly last done up in the eighties. Architecture doesn’t lie.

Yangyang and Dejun pick up McDonalds breakfast before eating it in the parking lot, Dejun elaborating on any questions he had formed the night before. There were five waterfalls of varying sizes throughout the woods, none too notable by modern standards. The forest has become a national one at this point, and no one here has the title to the trees anymore. There’s only one bar left, prohibition cracked down hard and fast in the wake of the murders. They were all buried in the local cemetery. Except John, who is a blank grave separate from his family.

Yangyang ends up picking at his food before Dejun even suggest they go inside.

It’s barren of people, and it’s the first time that Yangyang really sees that perhaps this is more of a dying town than he thought. The ghosts of a mansion, the ghosts of prosperity. Seems everything’s going missing.

The woman behind the front desk doesn’t bother to direct them once she’s seen Dejun and he doesn’t bother her with any small talk.

The back of the library hosts the archives of local news and Dejun walks him thoughtlessly to a small section in the far corner, guarded from sunlight.

“This is what we have of the year of the incident,” he explains, mindlessly pulling out the first plastic wrapped fold beyond the tab labeled _1927_ , “It’s not too much, but it’s enough to tell the story.”

It’s a solid cubic foot in the library’s shelf, “It’s quite impressive, really. It’s cool as shit that they’re so well kept.”

Dejun looks up, and his eyes are bright, enthused. Yangyang wonders if anyone has ever shared this place with him.

His fingers dance along the plastic edge, and he sets the one he’s pulled into Yangyang’s hands, “Come on, let’s get started. It will take us most of the library’s hours to get through this.”

Yangyang sits on one side of a rickety table and Dejun keeps it stable on the other end. Yangyang reads slowly, scanning every old and dated article for something that seems prevalent. He jumps at names ending in _Seo_ and reads carefully into every passage. Dejun shoots on ahead of him, reading the articles much faster due to his familiarity. He takes the time to point out each and every thing he finds prevalent to Yangyang, and he finds himself both overwhelmed and endeared by his absolute knowledge.

Eventually, they get to the day. It’s bold across the top, _SEO FAMILY DEAD, SON KILLS ALL_. It certainly gets the message across.

It’s a long article, but Dejun leads him through it. The parents were shot dead in their living room chairs. The fiancé and younger son shot in the back of the head execution style in John’s bedroom. John had shot himself in the chest, ending it by bleeding out on the floor next to the still warm bodies of the people who loved him most.

“It bothers me how they focus so much on John,” Yangyang admits, “This should be commemorating the family, yet I don’t think any of their names are mentioned more than once.”

“They don’t even use their birth names,” Dejun informs him.

“What?” Yangyang looks up, “What do you mean?”

“Nothing deep, it was just that most of them used had names they used for business and other purposes because they were more American. Like Harrison and Julia, they were Hajun and Jisoo. John was Youngho when he wasn’t Johnny. The younger brother is the only one that didn’t have a nickname.”

Yangyang shakes his head, “It’s fucked up man.”

Dejun nods, “Yeah,” he pushes another paper forward before picking up his phone, “Here, this one’s about the other death.”

“Only a week later?” Yangyang reads off the top.

“They were cleaning up the crime scene when it happened, guess they still thought they could sell the place.”

Yangyang nods slowly, he remember Donghyuck telling him that a million years ago. It’s foggy and tinged by retroactive distress, but it’s there.

He skims the beginning, and immediately slams it down because he didn’t remember that-

“It was the sheriff’s son?” Yangyang asks.

Dejun looks up from his screen, “Yeah?”

Confusion covers his face, “That wasn’t on your page.”

“Shit, really?” Dejun ponders, looking off into the distance, then shrugs, “I mean it wasn’t too important, but it certainly makes the story more interesting. I should add that in.”

Yangyang sighs, still thinking. For some reason, his mind is caught up on this one point. The fact that he was there, that the sheriff let him clean. It feels a little off in some way he can’t quite pinpoint.

“It’s weird that he’d be there, is all,” Yangyang mentions.

“More so than it was not knowing that?” Dejun asks, “If anything, it makes more sense. His dad probably needed help and, you know back then, jobs ran like genes. The son was in the force or was closing in on it, if I recall right.”

He rests his chin on his palm, “I guess,” but the descriptor _sheriff’s son_ still stands out like bold on the soft, worn paper.

Dejun interrupts his thoughts, “Hey, would you be okay if my cousin came by with some lunch after his shift? He wants to help out.”

Yangyang gives him a wry smile, “Has he ever helped before?”

Dejun scoffs, “No, he’s way too lazy. Too absorbed in his studies and his boyfriend, loser.”

He pushes the paper aside, “Where the hell does he go to school?”

“Part time student, commutes to the community college,” Dejun explains before adding, “What’s your Chipotle order?”

They read for a bit longer, mostly keeping small talk between themselves now that the meat of the articles is behind them. Dejun must’ve known, yet didn’t give anything away about his cousin. So, Yangyang’s surprised when Sicheng turns the corner to their section of the library.

Yangyang sits up straight, looking at the officer off duty. He’s changed into navy sweats and a large white hoodie, and once he meets Yangyang’s eyes he holds up a bag of takeout with an awkward smile.

“You?” Yangyang accuses.

Sicheng drops the bag softly to his side, scratches the back of his neck, “If you’ll let me.”

“Of course, why wouldn’t-get over here!” Yangyang commands, and is still a little too confused to appreciate the friendly smile Sicheng shoots his way.

Dejun carefully collects the newspapers and moves them to a separate table, giving a safe space for Sicheng to set down the food. Yangyang watches him with cautious eyes as he unpacks the food. He’s a little self conscious, a realization that makes him uncomfortable. He’s a police officer, a cop on Donghyuck’s case. Shouldn’t this whole search, what Yangyang’s trying to do, be a little insulting? A little silly? A little desperate?

Sicheng smiles at him and pushes him the bowl he ordered along with a pack of utensils. Yangyang takes them, trying not to let his insecurity seep through. Still, it’s much more silent once they all sit down.

They all open their food in that long quiet, before Sicheng breaks it with the soft and low cadence of his voice.

“You know, I’m here because I want to help. I don’t know if I believe it, but I want to help you no matter what that means.”

And he meets Yangyang’s eyes, and their so honest he has to look away. To contain his relief.

He brings a bit to his mouth, tries to lighten the mood by speaking around a bite, “Thanks. Means a lot.”

Dejun swats at him, “Don’t be rude.”

And they all laugh, the tension gone just like that.

—

Dejun and Sicheng make their way through the rest of the year, calling Yangyang over when they find something relating to the incident of interest. Yangyang, truthfully, wanders off a little bit after Sicheng finishes eating.

He had found his eyes trained sideways, looking at the other stacks along the walls, “How much of this have you read, Dejun?”

His returning hum had been indefinite, “For this case? Not more than a year or two past the thing. The depression hit pretty soon after, there were other things to talk about.”

Yangyang had nodded, but scanned the shelves regardless.

It’s how he’s ended up on the floor, pulling out sleeves of newspaper newer by increments that are inconsequential, and reading headlines before sliding them back into place. Of course, because it’s Yangyang, it’s doing the things that seem the least productive that end up being the most.

He pulls out the last paper before the date switches to _1937_ and freezes at the headline.

 _LEE FAMILY CALLS SEO MURDERS A HOAX_.

Yangyang is on his feet immediately and darting back to the table, “Dejun, have you seen this?”

The newspaper hits the table with more force than Yangyang would like to admit and Dejun snatches with severe interests. His eyes widen, and it causes Sicheng to lean forward with curiosity.

“No,” Dejun admits.

He scans the article, Sicheng flanking his sides to read over his shoulder as he goes.

“So these people knew them,” Yangyang says, “and they don’t think it’s true.”

“More than that,” Sicheng adds, “they found them, they’re the ones who reported the crime.”

“Wait, where’d you see that?” Dejun asks.

Sicheng points to the end of the article, “Look, it says here that Yuta and Taeyong Lee went over the next morning for breakfast and they found the crime scene. They don’t think Johnny was the murderer.”

Yangyang scans up the article from where Sicheng pointed, and frowns at the language he reads, “The reporter clearly doesn’t believe them. Look at how much of a bitch fit he throws over them not remembering the layout of what they found exactly. It’s been nine years, asshole.”

Dejun smirks at him over his shoulder, “You feel pretty strongly for some people trying to defend a family killer.”

Yangyang crosses his arms, denies the fact that his face heats when his unjust anger is pointed out, “Sorry, press is a sore spot with me right now.”

Sicheng reaches around Dejun, and gives his arm a gentle and reassuring squeeze. They meet eyes over Dejun, who’s gone back to reading, and have a smile of understanding.

“It’s essentially saying that these guys have known John since they were kids, and that he never would have done this. And that even though they don’t remember exactly what they found, it wasn’t what was reported.”

Yangyang runs his hands through his hair, tugging lightly to relieve the stress and ground himself, “That’s a lofty accusation.”

Dejun rocks back, and a single look at his face shows that he’s suppressing excitement, “Yeah, it is. It’s interesting. God, I wish we could find some kind of crime scene report. This changes a lot.”

Sicheng stares off for a second, pulls out his phone, “Hold on,” he tells them.

Dejun and Yangyang look over at him. His brows are furrowed, and his mouth is puckered in concentration.

“What?” Dejun asks.

SIcheng locks his phone, “I’m asking Jaehyun to check what files the police station has, we have a lot of old junk. Don’t know if any of it’s good but,” he shrugs, “If it can help at all.”

Dejun’s whole face lights up, and he envelops Sicheng in a fast hug that he stiffens under, “Thank you!”

He pulls away, lightly pushing Dejun too, but he looks more unprepared than truly uncomfortable. Sicheng looks up at Yangyang, and he feels himself smiling. He won’t lie, he isn’t optimistic, but the thought of it touching.

“Thank you,” Yangyang also says.

Sicheng shrugs, “He doesn’t get off shift for a bit, but I’ll get him to bring it over when he’s done, if it’s there.”

Dejun suddenly tilts his head up, concerned, “Wait, will they let him take it?”

“I mean, no one should care about it, right?” Yangyang counters, and they both look at him, “No one’s alive that cares, there’s nothing to hide. It’s old as shit.”

Sicheng smiles, and Dejun looks at him for confirmation, “Yeah that’s what I thought. Hopefully it won’t be too big of a deal.”

Sicheng’s phone pings, and he picks it up with a smile. Dejun makes a point of rolling his eyes, before looking at Yangyang and pretending to gag.

“He said that the sheriff thinks they still have the file. He’ll bring it back to the inn,” Sicheng tells.

“Fantastic!” Dejun exclaims, but then he turns much more mischievous, “It helps when your boyfriend has connections, doesn’t it?”

Sicheng looks up with indignation painted across his feature, “Hey, I’m a cop too!”

Their squabble develops into a little fit between cousins, and it makes Yangyang laugh off some of the tension sitting between his shoulder blades. He looks out the window and into the waning sunlight, follows it back to where it falls and reflects across the plastic protection of the newspapers.

The receptionist comes back to find them, and lets them know that the library will be closing soon. They slowly start to pack up the papers, putting them back where they belong. Yangyang pauses on the one about the Lee family, the couple that found their childhood friend and his whole family dead in their home.

It’s strange, to feel a connection across time, but it’s there. _I’m hurting too_ , he thinks, _I get what losing someone on a day meant to be happy, joyous, feels like. I get what you felt_.

He slides it back on the shelf but he still thinks of them. And he thinks of Donghyuck.

He hopes Jaehyun gets off shift soon.

—

Dejun’s extended family could be politely called, in a different way than Dejun himself is, eccentric.

“No, no listen, you can’t tell me that you like the wallpaper in your room,” Ten tells Yangyang, and he’s intimidated by how serious he is, “Doyoung picked it out ages ago, and I’ve been telling him it’s hideous ever since. You absolutely cannot give him the leg up now, it’s unfair.”

He, Dejun, and Sicheng ended up being invited to dinner with their great-uncle and his two “business partners”. Yangyang ended up across from Ten, who is much more chaotic than Yangyang had assessed on their first meeting. It is both extremely pleasing and mildly terrifying.

“Ten, don’t be mad that Kun takes my side in all the design choices. Jealousy isn’t a good look on you.”

Doyoung and Kun are two men who have also aged kindly into their late years. Kun’s hair has gone grey, but unlike Ten he’s let it stay white and soft, untouched by modern fashion. Doyoung is completely different, he almost seems younger with the way his hair is dyed dark. Still, the crow’s feet and his gentle smile lines along with the soft wrinkles on his hands give away the fact that he is just as old as the other men that own the inn.

“We still hang up all of your art, Ten,” and Dejun’s great-uncle is clearly the mediator in this dynamic, though the smug smile he wears throughout their exchanges shows that he enjoys the bickering a bit more than he lets on, “Your taste is still all over the place.”

“Doyoung’s interior design takes away from it,” he scoffs with a smile, “No one can appreciate the art when the backdrop is that ugly.”

Doyoung brandishes the spoon for the mashed potatoes, “Now you listen here! You old _coot_ -“

“So, did anyone cool check in today!” Dejun interrupts.

Yangyang looks over at Sicheng who just shrugs at him, a familiar and tired smile at his family’s antics on his face.

“Hm, not really,” Ten easily changes topics easily, “A family stopped by, but I think they’re only passing through.”

“How was your day in the library?” Kun asks and when Yangyang looks up, he’s surprised to see that he’s looking at him.

“Oh! Me?” Kun nods, and Yangyang continues, “Um, good. We actually found some stuff that Dejun hadn’t seen before, and Jaehyun might be helping us get a little more information on it.”

Doyoung looks over at him from across the table, “I’m glad he could help.”

Yangyang’s politeness kicks into high drive, “I mean, everything your family is doing helps. Thank you so much for letting me stay here.”

Doyoung nods, “Of course, don’t worry about it. What exactly were you looking into today?”

Dejun butts in here, “The ghost in Seo Manor.”

Doyoung hums in acknowledgment, but says no more. Ten looks over at him with wary eyes, but Kun picks up the conversation.

“That’s cool that you’ve found something new, I know Dejun’s been looking into that on and off for awhile.”

“It is really cool!” Dejun confirms, “It was about some of his friends denying the initial reports of the crime, saying that it was false information.”

Doyoung stands up abruptly, his chair sliding back with a harsh scratch across the floor, “Is anyone done with their plate?”

Sicheng immediately holds out his plate, his eyes careful as he assesses Doyoung and his body language, which seems extremely closed off. Yangyang hands him his plate as well, and Doyoung doesn’t meet his look at all.

He walks out of the quaint dining room and into the kitchen, leaving a still table in his place.

“Is he alright?” Dejun asks, and Ten shrugs while Kun looks concerned.

Doyoung comes back out, breezing over to Ten and Kun and kissing the tops of both of their heads quickly, “I’m going to head upstairs, I’m a bit tired,” he looks over at Yangyang and the smile offered to him is tight, “It was nice meeting you.”

He walks out of the room. Ten and Kun make eye contact, and all it takes is a single eyebrow raise from Kun to get Ten to stand up.

“Doyoung!” Ten calls, as he follows him out of the room, “These aren’t the legs I had in eighties, you need to slow down!”

And then it’s just the four of them in the room.

“I’m sorry about that,” Kun says.

“No, I’m sorry,” Yangyang tries to start.

Kun waves him off, “How were you to know? It’s okay.”

Dejun rests his elbows on the table and leans towards his great-uncle, “Is Doyoung okay?”

Kun shrugs, stands up. He begins collecting plates as well. Sicheng stands up to join him, gathering all the dishes that Kun can’t grab.

Eventually, he answers, “Yes, I’m sure he’s fine. Nothing more than a little tired.”

—

Jaehyun arrives closer to nine o’clock. He greets Sicheng with a quick kiss on the cheek, and then he smiles as he hands Yangyang a manilla file.

His heart races, “These are the original documents?”

“No, they’re scans,” Jaehyun clarifies, “So I can’t promise that they’re everything that was ever there, but I hope they’re helpful.”

He and Dejun thank him before he leaves with Sicheng, and they race back to Yangyang’s room to dig into the papers.

The first thing Yangyang notices is how thin the pile is.

“Shouldn’t there be more than this?” he ponders aloud.

Dejun sits down beside him, flipping over the cover with little patience, “Not sure, never seen a police report before.”

He snatches up the first paper, and Yangyang sees the faded copy of _PROCEDURE AND CONCLUSION_ written across the top in typewriter font. Yangyang reaches for the papers that are left, apparently the description of the crime scene. It’s handwritten, which surprises him. It surprises him more that once he leafs through the meager three pages, there’s no witness statements from Taeyong or Yuta Lee.

He gets reading.

And the thing is, it isn’t what he knows. Harrison and Julia were found in the living room, but it’s so much more than that. They weren’t killed in their chairs, shot before they knew what was happening. Julia had been backed up against the wall, they found her slumped back where she had cowered in the corner. Harrison was splayed on the ground, fallen mid action. A poker from their ornate fireplace flown from his hand. He was fighting back.

The weapon: a rifle.

They found the last three in John’s room. He was draped across the two underneath him, his fiancé under one arm and his brother under the other. They were all shot in the back of the head.

It’s not what was said before. It’s not what’s been said at all. He feels his hands shaking, this sick sense of grief and something like disgust crawling up his throat with every exhalation. He thinks back to the last person to die in that house, John’s ex lover, _the sheriff’s son_. Dejun is right, jobs did run like blood, like genes, like family; but so does nepotism, and lies.

“Holy fuck,” Yangyang breathes, “He didn’t do it.”

Dejun leans over, and Yangyang all but thrusts the paper into this hands. Dejun starts reading immediately, and in his silence, Yangyang’s eyes scan over to the paper he dropped in wake of Yangyang’s shock.

_VICTIMS: Hajun Seo, Jisoo Seo, Youngho Seo, Haechan Seo, Taeil Moon._

And he feels so distraught.

“He didn’t do it,” Dejun agrees, so quiet it’s barely there, “All these years, someone else killed his whole family, and he’s been painted as the person who did it.”

“That ex boyfriend killed his whole family,” Yangyang asserts, “And his family covered it up to keep his reputation in tact.”

“Do you think?” Dejun questions, “There’s not much evidence for that.”

“What more evidence do you need?” Yangyang demands, “They weren’t unliked people, there’s no other reason for them to have covered up a murder. Hasn’t this town always been small? It would’ve been easy to find them if it was someone random. They would’ve done it if there wasn’t something else at play.”

“You think that’s enough proof?” Dejun worries his lip, reluctant.

Yangyang pauses, shy to say what he feels is the most convincing piece of evidence. But then he remembers that Dejun is the reason he’s here, that he believes too.

“If John really did become a ghost,” Yangyang says slowly, “Then doesn’t it make sense that the one time he was malicious, the one time someone died, was when he came into the house?”

Dejun presses his palms to his eyes, “ _Holy shit_.”

But then Dejun abruptly looks back up, “Wait at the end of this, did you get that far? They found five unique sets of shoe prints that did not belong to any of the family. ”

Yangyang pauses for a second, “That’s why they didn’t go out the back. They were corralled.”

Dejun nods, “That’s more than just an ex boyfriend.”

And Yangyang thinks, ponders. His mind goes back to the night this all began for him. Of being on that third floor banister, the nerves of something just not being right already getting to him. Donghyuck standing next to the wall, telling him about this ex boyfriend, and-

“Someone else in the cleanup party was being pulled,” Yangyang recalls, “but they all left to take the ex to the clinic. He must’ve brought friends.”

Dejun pauses, and they both look down at the files. It’s a pause filled with a kind of guilt, a deep sadness. A disgust at what was done in the past and how they both were unwilling perpetrators of someone else’s cover up in the present.

“He didn’t do it,” and Dejun sounds as guilty as he feels.

—

_How’s it going?_ Renjun texts him.

Yangyang is making familiar mistakes that night, scrolling through twitter. But his private one this time.

He still can’t escape the reality of the outside. He scrolls through searches and news feeds. There’s much more frustration at this point in the week. People are frustrated at his silence, then others are frustrated at them for being frustrated, and all of his friends are frustrated at the world for making them no more than characters in some tragic story.

 _one like and i’ll piss on the tmz building_ , Jaemin tweeted on his private account, quickly followed by a, _nice. thanks for enabling me, jeno_.

Yangyang sees Donghyuck passing by his eyes in pictures for the fifth time that night, and he feels so lost. So out of his depth. If this is real, if everything is what it really does seem to be, then why? John wasn’t a malicious person, he was a victim to some greater act of jealousy and hatred. Why did he take him? Shouldn’t he understand? Why did Donghyuck have to be the one he took after all these years.

 _history is really fucked up, did you know that?_ is all he sends back to Renjun. He might not get it, but at least it’s not Yangyang’s thought alone anymore.

He sleeps that night, but only just. He keeps thinking of potential past lovers banging on his door, taking everything he cares about from him.

—

Dejun wakes him later in the morning, perhaps sensing that they maybe both needed a little more rest after the night before. Yangyang smiles sadly as he opens the door, and Dejun returns it easily.

“What’s the plan for today?” Yangyang asks, unsure of where to go from here.

Dejun pauses, as if unsure if how Yangyang will receive his idea, “The manor?”

And yeah, maybe he was right to be hesitant.

“If you think you can handle it, that is,” Dejun adds, “I know it might be a little hard, so don’t worry if you can’t. It was just an idea.”

Yangyang shakes his head, not one to be deterred, “No, no let’s go.”

The drive is relatively short, but very quiet. They pull around the corner of the dilapidated driveway in a handful of minutes, and Yangyang is quickly reminded that sometimes he talks more shit than he can really back up. His heart floors at the looming front of the house, the remnants of the investigation sprinkled around. It brings him right back to earlier that week, _that week_. God how long can a single week be?

“I can’t do this,” Yangyang confesses immediately.

“That’s fine,” Dejun changes modes, and puts his hand on the top of the wheel to begin backing out.

“Hold on, wait,” Yangyang asks suddenly, not fully wanting to commit to leaving either.

Dejun slowly stops, putting the parking brake on. They sit in quiet for awhile. Yangyang looks over the whole setting, so much different in the day, and tries to picture a time where this mansion was happy, alive. He looks into the dark windows of the front, the ones unbroken seeming to stare back. A presence has been there, reliving the fear of night he died over and over again, for nearly a hundred years. Alone.

“Why does this whole thing suddenly feel much too big to handle on our own?” Yangyang asks.

“I mean,” Dejun says, “isn’t it?”

Yangyang reclines in his seat, “It’s just so hard to think about, this has the potential to be a metaphysical miracle. Most people would be elated right now.”

“I think you have a pretty good reason to not be happy about it,” Dejun replies, and he sounds worried.

Yangyang changes the topic, “How’d you even get into this mystery? I know it’s one of those urban myths with a little dedicated following, but you certainly know more than anyone else about it.”

Dejun hums, letting him move on without protest, “I mean, it probably started the first time I saw that photo I have on the wiki. Because he just seemed like such an easy going and real guy, I found it hard to believe that he could commit the crime he did,” he shifts uncomfortably in his seat, “Guess I know why, now.”

Yangyang looks over at him, pushes him playfully in an effort to bring up the mood, “You couldn’t have known.”

Dejun shrugs, looking at his hands with a somber neutrality.

“How’d you even get the photo? It wasn’t in any of the papers,” Yangyang asks, because it had been on his mind.

And he was right to, maybe even should’ve asked sooner. Because Dejun suddenly sits up ramrod straight, his eyes wide with realization.

Yangyang scoffs to cover up the sudden anxiety his actions bring, “What, had you forgotten something?”

And _yes_ , because, “Doyoung did.”

—

Dejun and Yangyang _march_ into the inn, the frightful and pounding desperation absorbing Yangyang’s body.

Ten looks up at them, and his eyebrows raise at their determination, “Can I help you boys today?”

“Where’s Doyoung?” Dejun demands.

“In the back. Reading. Why?” Ten asks, a little defiant.

“It’s about the mansion, please,” Dejun asks, “I remembered that he used to tell me about it all the time when I was younger. We need to know, we’re so close to figuring it out.”

Ten squints, as if assessing him, “I love you, but I’m wary. You know how Doyoung can be.”

Dejun opens his mouth to answer, but Yangyang steps forward first.

“We know that it wasn’t him, that it was his ex lover,” Yangyang says, and his body goes even more taught at the expression of slow approval and appreciation that passes over Ten’s face, “We just want to understand, so that I can get my boyfriend back.”

Ten smiles, sighs. He pushes up from the desk and moves to the door behind him; the one that leads to their dining room, kitchen, and the stairs up to their bedroom.

“Doyoung Lee!” he calls, “Get in here!”  
_Lee?_ Yangyang thinks, and then Doyoung walk into the room.

His eyes are wide, a little reluctant, and Kun follows right behind him. Doyoung looks over the two of them and the obvious tension of the room before looking back to Ten, “What’s going on?”

Ten nods to them, and Dejun starts with, “It’s about-“

“You’re related to Taeyong and Yuta, aren’t you?” Yangyang cuts him off.

Kun’s eyes widen, and he places a hand on Doyoung’s shoulder, as if to stop him from running away. Doyoung stares at him, a little cold, and perhaps a little scared.

“We believe them, you know,” Yangyang tells him, “We know they were right. It wasn’t John, it was the sheriff’s son. We just need to understand more now, everything we can. So we can know why he took who I love, and so I can get him back.”

Doyoung seems to soften, lean back slightly into Kun before meeting Yangyang’s eyes again.

“Yes,” he admits quietly, so small for how old the pain of this must be, “I am. They adopted me years after it all occurred.”

Yangyang opens his mouth to reply, but Doyoung continues before he gets the chance to speak.

”Why don’t you come back, and we can all talk about what we know.”

They end up sitting down around the dining room table, so much different in atmosphere than it was just the night before. Kun and Ten have gone into the kitchen to make tea for everyone, and probably to give them some privacy. Doyoung left briefly before they sat down, and came back with two books stacked one over the other, one wide and the other more compact. They now sit on the table in front of them, as quiet and still as the man who brought them.

“These are the books my dads gave me,” Doyoung explains, “It’s a photo album and Johnny’s diary. It’s all they had of his family.”

Yangyang lunges at an incredible pace, grabbing the journal off the top with care and urgency.

Dejun slides the photo album closer to him, asks, “What do you know about him, Doyoung?”

Yangyang pours over the pages, so frail and fragile that they’re close to crumbling under his touch. He’s careful as he can be, moving quickly as his eyes rush over and over the lines.

 _Taeil and I snuck out tonight, again,_ says the looping, romantic handwriting, _I know my family loves him dearly and looks forward to our engagement, but I think they’d worry for my health and safety if they knew that I left my window every night to sneak into the woods with him. I can’t help it! I already want to spend every waking hour by his side, they can’t blame me for wanting to see him under the stars as well._

“My one dad, Taeyong, he would always tell me how good of a man he was. A little silly, very quick to fall in love. The three of them grew up together and apparently he was always the one to kiss the bruises better and charm the girls on the playground. He seemed so naturally kind, in that way.”

_I took Haechan to our spot this evening. This much I know is unallowed. He is perhaps much too young to be gallivanting after midnight already, but he’s been pestering me for months and I can’t say no any longer! I hope that he only goes there responsibly and with sound mind, it is certainly precarious enough to be dangerous if he doesn’t take care in his trip. He’ll slip and fall past the entrance and into a whole bed of rocks, knowing him._

“He was a good brother as well. He spent all his free time with Haechan, helping him with his studies and his social troubles. They were a good family unit, I know Taeil loved him as well.”

_Father told me of his plans to retire soon. That means it will soon be my turn to lead his business, to manage these woods. It would be a lie to say I’m not scared, but more than that I am excited to be trusted with the prosperity he has built since coming here. I have the determination to not let him down, to do everything I can to be the man he somehow sees in me. I’ll start by asking Taeil to be by my side, formally. My mother’s given me grandmother’s ring. I think it suits him so well._

“I wish I could’ve gotten to know him, I know he would’ve loved me a lot,” Doyoung finishes, and Yangyang looks up at him, choked on his emotions.

“Did you ever go see him, his ghost, surely you had heard about it?” Yangyang asks quietly.

Dejun, no longer active the conversation, lifts the cover to the photo album. Doyoung sighs, looking over at him with an expression of years of sadness and missing someone he never got to know.

“No. We had all heard about it, but we never went,” he shook his head, “Well, that’s not quite true. My other father went out one night without telling my dad or me. When he came back he said that we shouldn’t go, that it wasn’t something we needed to see.”

“Do you think Yuta saw him?” Yangyang questions.

Doyoung shakes his head, “I imagine he experienced much of what everyone else does. And that hearing Johnny being in fear like that, over and over again, was enough to never go back.”

Yangyang pauses, and that’s when Kun and Ten join them. Kun sets tea a mug in front of Doyoung, sits down beside him. Doyoung looks back up at Yangyang.

“I remember my dad and him stayed together all night after that, stayed together for most of the week actually. I think it was very hard for him, much harder than he could handle on his own.”

Yangyang takes his own mug from Ten and one for Dejun, who has frozen with one page open. Ten then goes back to join his two partners.

“Why do you think he took Donghyuck?” Yangyang asks.

Doyoung shrugs, “I don’t know. The only time he’s ever been hostile is when, well the person everyone _knows_ did it was there. I can’t tell you why he’d do this,” he looks a bit curious, though not accusative, “It was him you saw on the camera, right?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Yangyang tells him empathetically, “I’m one hundred percent certain, I just don’t know _why-_ ”

“Look,” Dejun cuts him off, still completely still.

“What? Wait-“

“Look,” Dejun commands, pointing to the page of the photo album he has opened.

So Yangyang does. It’s a family portrait, all five of the people killed that night in Seo Manor. His eyes glance around the page, but they stop on one face, his blood going cold and freezing in an instant.

“I don’t know for sure, because like I said I don’t really know you all too well but,” he trails off.

Yangyang can’t breathe.

“What is it?” Ten asks, concerned and curious.

 _Him_.

He's on the other side of John, no _Johnny_ , from Taeil, his smile shining off the page. He’s not quite a dead ringer for Donghyuck, but it’s so close it’s ridiculous. His hair is longer and darker than Donghyuck’s is now, but lighter than it is naturally. He’s more lean, a little shorter, and he’s got a criminal amount of freckles splashed across his cheeks. The shape of his lips, the way his nose is a little more upturned, it’s all close but not quite. However, his smile, taken candid in this photo, is a replica. It’s certainly enough that Yangyang would have to do, did do, a double take.

Johnny’s little brother looks like his boyfriend.

“Am I right?” Dejun asks, reluctant.

Yangyang nods, and Doyoung leans forward with a worried expression, “Is everything okay?”

“Haechan looks so much like Yangyang’s boyfriend, they’re almost exactly the same.”

He hears that name out loud, and he has this horrible sinking sensation that feels a lot like recognition.

“Wait,” Yangyang’s brain can’t keep up, doesn’t want to, “Say it again.”

“Haechan?” Dejun repeats, “Are you okay?”

His hearts pounding so hard he can hear it in his ears. He should’ve connected this the first time he read the brother’s name, he should’ve put this together from the moment they realized that the ghost shouldn’t be malicious. How could he be so _stupid_.

“I need to go to the police station, I need to look at our footage. I need to be sure. Can you call Sicheng? I need to see it _right now,_ ” Yangyang rambles, already standing up.

Dejun follows, waving at the men at the table before running with his phone out, “Okay? Why?”

Yangyang doesn’t answer, just gets in Dejun’s car.

—

Jaehyun and Sicheng escort him to the evidence room as soon as he enters the station, having gotten permission to let him look at his footage since they’ve made their own copies of it all. Yangyang knows which clip is the one he’s looking for, and he pulls up his footage from the EVP session immediately.

It was weird even then, deeply unsettling on that cold night. And now, now it makes his heart drop.

“ _What’s your name?_ ” Donghyuck asks on the footage, looking down at the noisy little box.

There was nothing but static, but there never is anything more.

“ _What is your name?_ ”

Again, nothing, but Donghyuck pushes on.

“ _My name is Donghyuck, can you please tell me yours?_ ” Donghyuck looks up at Yangyang as he says it, a tired eyebrow raised. They were still cocky at this point in the night. This was, perhaps, the last point they were cocky that night.

And there it is, that noise. That little syllable of nonsense that was nothing then but is everything now.

_Hae-_

“ _Why are you here?_ ” Donghyuck doesn’t look perturbed, because it’s nonsense, but-

_Hae-_

Donghyuck shifts, sitting back on his heels, “ _What is your purpose?_ ”

A different voice from a different frequency, saying the same thing.

“ _How long have you been here?_ ”

_Hae-_

_“What keeps you here?”_

_Hae-_

“ _Please tell me, what’s your name?_ ”

_Hae-_

“ _Could you tell me mine?_ ”

And the box had repeated the noise one last time, and then it shorted out. Yangyang pauses the clip, not needing to see the ensuing reluctance and fear the sudden malfunction had caused.

Johnny, had stopped talking because he answered the question, because he was trying to talk to him and he finally got a message across. He had said a name, what he thought was his name.

Because they look exactly the same.

Yangyang collapses back into the chair, shocking Jaehyun and Sicheng. Dejun, behind him, is stock still.

“Woah, _woah_ ,” Jaehyun exclaims, “What is this? What does this mean? Does it have something to do with your whole ghost thing?”

It has everything to do with the ghost thing, he wants to say. But he’s so stuck he can’t even open his mouth, can’t do anything but think.

He didn’t take Donghyuck because he was malicious, or evil, or a killer. He took him because he looked like his younger brother, because he _thought_ he was his younger brother. He was trying to, what, protect him? Keep him? See him again?

It hurts his heart, but more than that it causes him irreversible distress. He finally breaks, leans forward and puts his head in his hand and _sobs_. Lets it all wash over him, the fact that he’s gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone, _gone._ And that it wasn’t for something awful or evil or cruel. It was from someone else who’s hurting. Someone who’s gone a near century separated from his family and the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, only to have someone he cares for dance right back into his hands.

It hurts because it’s made of hurt. A hundred year long act of cruelty still renewing its pain. Yangyang sobs, and wishes that something, at any point on this timeline, had gone slightly better.

—

Dejun drives him back to the inn, drops him right at the door.

“We’ll figure out what to do tomorrow,” the sun is setting, “Just stay in. Sicheng has a day off and we can figure out what to do.”

Yangyang shuts the door. Waits to hear Dejun pull away. Opens the door.

There’s now way in hell he’s sitting still. Staying in this damn room.

It was a five minute drive to Seo Manor earlier in the day, and it’s a twenty minute walk in the early night. He’s cold, only has his phone and winter jacket on him, and he doesn’t care. The trees are ominous and overwhelming, more than they were the first time he and Donghyuck pulled up to this damn mansion. He breathes deeply on the front doorstep, and pushes open the door.

It’s still in the manor tonight, no wind to speak of. In fact, the whole energy of the place is different. It’s not the same place he was in when they were filming. Something’s missing now.

Johnny is gone.

Yangyang sighs, rubs his temples to abate the throbbing headache that’s working its way up from there.

“Where’d you take him?” he whispers, desperate, “Where’d you go?”

Nothing answers back.

 _”Fuck,”_ Yangyang whispers, and he starts climbing the stairs.

He walks along the long hallway that leads to the bedroom Johnny, Taeil, and Haechan died in. It’s cold, much colder than the greater space of the house. He wonders if it’s the residual energy that Johnny has left behind. A hundred years of mourning must leave quite a scar.

The room itself is even colder, how did they not notice it on that first night? He steps in slowly, hoping that this will somehow lead him right. He spins around slowly, murmurs to himself.

“I couldn’t find anything that night,” he tells nobody, “It was a path that lead to nowhere but a stream, and you hadn’t gone up or down. So I guess, it must have something to do with here, if this was your other way out.”

He looks to the window, remembers Donghyuck saying, _found jammed_.

Yangyang walks over and _jerks_ the frame up. It doesn’t move, hasn’t moved since the night Johnny died. He tries harder, pulls harder. And eventually, as though it was ready to give up after all these years, it glides above his head.

Yangyang leans his body out, no longer afraid of being pushed in this home. He looks around. The ground beneath him must have been garden once, but is now a tangle of native plants that connects to the greater woods. To his left, there’s nothing but the eventual corner of the mansion. To his right.

He sighs with the weight of the tragedy, they were so close.

Bricks bob in and out of the wall in an almost unintentional pattern. Yangyang wonders what happened to make the craftsman overlook it. They make perfect handholds, footholds. It’s the perfect way to sneak out with your brother, to see your lover, from jealous murderers.

Yangyang steps out onto the window sill carefully, aware the house isn’t constructed quite as well as it used to be. Slowly, he slides his hands and feet over, placing them in the dips of the wall. Just like Johnny did all those years ago.

His descent is slow, and sure he could go back out and around, but there’s something within him that tells him to follow these exact steps, to walk the exact same trails, land in the exact same place.

He makes it down alright, and comes down in a well worn spot that is so overshadowed and compacted, nothing has grown even in the new century. Yangyang looks around, up to his waist in knotted wildflowers, and tries to find where to go from here.

“Come on,” he tells himself, “Where now?”

Johnny went to the forest, he tells himself, even if he dragged him in a different direction. He looks to the trees, scans them in the low light of the stars. Dead across from him he sees an old and rusty nail sticking out from a tree. Nothing more than the remnants of something long gone, but its a sign none the less.

Yangyang starts moving forward, treading above the the new flora. He reaches the tree with seeds stuck across his legs. He steps into the woods with nothing but wide eyes.

There’s a trail.

Yangyang breaks free and starts trampling all the plants that have began to creep along it’s sides, across the stepping stones that mark the way further into the dark. His head pounds along with his heart. There’s not an ounce of fear of his body. There’s nothing but courage because this is the right way, has to be where he’s meant to go.

He walks for ten long minutes, stomping and panting the whole time. Eventually, the trees begin to thin. Yangyang sprints to the other side.

And there’s water.

He looks out over the small, clear pool that leads down to a stream, perhaps the one he found in the woods so long ago. At the base of the pool, a waterfall falls from a greater rocky wall. One of five, if he remembers right.

This is where they’d sneak to, this is their meeting spot. But, he thinks sadly, wasn’t it dangerous? Wasn’t it a risk of safety? There has been nothing risky along this path so far.

He peers at the waterfall, it’s nothing too intimidating, nothing that could drown him in it’s force. However, it certainly is rocky to boot.

_He’ll slip and fall past the entrance and into a whole bed of rocks, knowing him._

Yangyang squints at the waterfall, looks at where it fades to rock wall. There’s a lip. Sticking out from the side.

His eyes widen at what that must be. That would be dangerous.

Donghyuck is in there.

He scrabbles across the rocky waterline and up to the rock face. His chest pushes against the wall, and when he peers down the side he sees the opening of the cave behind the water. The place Johnny was trying to escape to. A place to hide. A place to keep someone safe.

Yangyang doesn’t bother to be careful as he steps onto the lip of rock that leads to the cave. He shuffles along it way too fast, getting carelessly wet as he tucks behind the waterfall and tumbles headfirst into the dark unknown.

His body is pounding so hard he can feel the blood rushing in his fingertips. He can’t see anything in the cave, nothing at all. From the echo of his breathing, he can tell it’s not deep. From the echo of someone else’s, he can tell he’s not alone.

He rips out his phone and flashes on the flashlight. His eyes sting on their own accord. He doesn’t try to contain their emotion.

“ _Donghyuck,_ ” he breathes out, racing to the other side of the cave where his boyfriend sits, knees tucked up to his chest.

But he jerks, sliding away from Yangyang and whining high in his throat. Yangyang stops immediately. Falls against the ground in a sign of surrender. He looks him over, trying to figure out why he’s causing him distress, but it stops when he meets his eyes. They’re whited out, cloudy.

It’s not him.

There’s a long minute where Yangyang has to just breathe. Neither of them move, neither of them speak. Yangyang closes his eyes, braces himself for whatever this will be. For talking with the body of his boyfriend without his soul behind it. For having to hold back for just a little longer.

He opens his eyes, sets his phone down facing up so it illuminates the cave, and smiles.

“Hello, Johnny.”

His boyfriend’s head whips up, looking at Yangyang with wide eyes and a mouth slack with shock. Slowly, he returns his head to his knees, maintaining eye contact the whole time.

“Who are you?” his voice makes Yangyang shake, he’s both Donghyuck and not. Both quiet and not. The voice he knows falls softly from his mouth, and a greater, older voice echoes around the cave, “I don’t know you. Are you one of them?”

 _Have you not moved on_? Yangyang thinks, desperate and so sad just looking at him, _Have you been stuck in this night for all this time_?

“No,” Yangyang assures him, “I’m not. They’re not here. They can’t hurt you anymore.”

A long pause, and both voices break, “How?”

The distress makes his chest shoot with pain, he wants to hold him so bad, “Because it’s over, it has been for a long time.”

Johnny doesn’t respond, his eyes cast away, fear still all over his body language as he begins to shake slightly. Yangyang slowly slides forward.

“Do you know that? It’s been a long time since it’s been over. They’re gone now, you even got one of them. They can’t ever hurt anyone again. They’ll never do anything again.”

Donghyuck’s body wracks with silent quivers that don’t help his resolve to stay back.

“Johnny?” he whispers.

He doesn’t reply, and it registers then what the shaking is, the small rises and falls. Yangyang doesn’t know how he didn’t recognize the appearance of Donghyuck crying, but it tears his heart open once he does.

“It can’t be,” Johnny cries, his voice thin and barely there. He lifts his hands to his face and looks at them through running tears “It can’t be, he’s here. If it’s over like I remember it, then this couldn’t be real.”

The echo of pain and desperation rings round and round the cave. Yangyang has tears that fall down his face too.

“It’s not him,” Yangyang tells him, “This ones mine, he’s someone from my life. I want him back, please.”

Johnny looks at him, sniffles.

“But he looks like mine.”

“I know,” Yangyang reaches out impulsively, and flinches when Johnny moves further away, “I know, but he’s not and I miss him. You’ve taken him from me like they took your family. And I miss him so much.”

The waterfall roars behind him, and Johnny’s eyes quiver, emotions as full as the pool below.

He breaks.

“I don’t _want_ that to be true!” he sobs, “It can’t be, I don’t want it to be, it’s not how it should be!”

“I’m sorry,“ Yangyang tries to comfort but-

“They just broke open our door, they just shot my mom, my dad before they even said anything! We tried to run but the deputy came from the back, so we went upstairs and the window _jammed_ I couldn’t, I wasn’t strong enough-“

“It’s okay,” Yangyang moves into his space, can’t take the distress streaming from Donghyuck and from the ambient noise around him. He doesn’t run away, and Yangyang is so glad to be able to be close.

“ _It’s not_!” he yells, “I covered them with my body, I begged them to stop! To take anything he wanted! But he didn’t listen, didn’t stop. He shot Taeil over my left arm, and then my brother from over my right. They killed them as I was holding them, they made sure _I_ went last!”

And Yangyang can’t return anything to that. Can’t even imagine the terror of that. The pain of that.

The waterfall rushes. A last barrier that he finally got to. A hundred years too late.

“I don’t want that to be real,” Johnny says, so quiet, “I want to have saved at least one.”

Yangyang breathes in and out, lets the tears fall down, lets them both calm down. The mood needs to calm, even if it’s heavy as a rock now.

“Do you miss them?” he finally asks.

And Johnny nods so desperately, “ _Yes_.”

“I know you’ve been alone for so long,” he tells him, trying to be kind and open, “I know, but you know why that is, right?”

Johnny looks up at him, and the appearance of Donghyuck so distressed and such a mess almost makes him lose his composure, almost makes him throw himself at him. He holds back.

“Because they’ve gone, moved on,” Yangyang does his best to be gentle, “Keeping this person that I love won’t bring them back, it just keeps you away from them.”

Johnny doesn’t move, doesn’t say a word. Yangyang pushes on, unafraid to wear his own desperation.

“I’m so sorry that you’ve been kept here, that people have made you a monster, that they’ve kept you living that night for so long,” he breathes out, “But I believe you. I know that you’re a good man. My friend, Dejun, he knows you’re a good man. Your friends Yuta and Taeyong, they got a son. He believed you like they did. He always knew that you wouldn’t hurt any of your family. Their son’s lovers. They know that too. And I’ll do my best to make sure everyone else, everyone who will hear your story, knows that it was told wrong the first time.”

There’s a pause. But then Johnny sniffles, cocks his head to the side, “Taeyong and Yuta had a son?”

Yangyang smiles, he can’t believe that’s what he focuses on, “Yes. He grew up well. His name’s Doyoung.”

Johnny leans forward, “And he’s happy?”

Yangyang sits back, nods, “He keeps and inn with two men that he’s been with for most of his life. He’s a huge part of the life of the family of one of his lovers. He’s stable, and loved, and he keeps your memory happily even though he never met you.”

Johnny looks down. A few more tears, silent and nonviolent, roll down his cheeks.

“And I’m taking happiness from you?” Johnny asks, looking at Donghyuck’s hands again, “This isn’t someone I love, it’s someone you love.”

“So much,” Yangyang confirms.

They both go quiet in the dark. Johnny doesn’t move for awhile. Eventually, he wipes off his own cheeks. A second later he leans forward, wipes off Yangyang’s.

He frames his face with his lover’s hands, “You promise to tell the truth of me?”

“I promise,” because he does.

Johnny pauses again, and then stares into his eyes.

Breaks his heart.

“Do you think I’ll see them again?”

Yangyang doesn’t want to promise, it feels so wrong to promise.

“I hope so,” Yangyang tells him, “I want you to. I think you will.”

Johnny cocks his head, “What was your name?”

“I’m Yangyang Liu,” he answers, “You have my boyfriend, Donghyuck Lee.”

Johnny smiles, “I like Lees.”

Yangyang smiles back, “Aren’t they lovely?”

Johnny laughs, and it’s still strange how hollowly it echoes. When he meets his eyes again it’s only slightly fearful, mostly content.

“I’m sorry, Yangyang,” and then, like a goodbye, “Thank you, Yangyang.”

And then Donghyuck falls limp on the floor.

He can’t help the fear that races through him. He leans over his body, whispers his name over and over again, holding his face in his hands. Yangyang cradles his body, tries not to think about how cold he is. How alone he’s been.

Then his eyes open, warm and brown and present. A sob gets knocked out of Yangyang as Donghyuck reaches up and all but tackles him into a hug.

“ _You found me_ ,” Donghyuck whispers.

And Yangyang holds him so tight, pulls him so close.

“Of course I did,” Yangyang murmurs, “I love you.”

—

**BOYFRIEND TAG *NOT CLICKBAIT***

_Posted December 25, 2019_

“Just because we’re out now doesn’t mean you get to be _in my lap_ during the intro Yangyang, have some decency.”

_A loud BEEP as the scene cuts._

“Hey howdy hey.”

“Hello!”

“I’m Donghyuck.”

“I’m Yangyang!”

“We hunt ghosts when we’re not being kidnapped-” _a playful slap_ , “Hey! I can say that! I’m the one who got snatched, it’s funny! Anyways, we hunt ghosts but we also have been dating and you were all very excited about that so now we’re answering questions.”

“Nice intro.”

“Thanks babe, I try hard.”

“Okay! First one!”

“Donghyuck, describe me in three words.”

“Three words? That’s a lot.”  
“A lot? What does that mean?”

“Don’t think too hard you’ll hurt yourself.”

“Um, honestly? Empathetic, driven, and caring.”

“Oh, like actually honest.”

“I could’ve said major dumb ass, I have the ability to still take it back.”

 _”No, no! You’re fine! I promise! Thank you!_ ”

“And?”

“Oh, you? Short as shit.”

“ _Fuck_ you.”

“Thanks, love you too.”

“What are our nicknames? I do affectionately call you dumbass, but I think I’m more of a babe person.”

“Truthfully, Donghyuck, it could go either way.”

“And what does it say about you that you evoke those emotions?”

“To think I was about to say that I call you my love most often, I shouldn’t say anything at all about you.”

 _Donghyuck playfully punches in his direction, flush high on his cheeks_ , “Shut up.”

“Oh here’s some quick one’s. Yangyang, speed round!”

“I’m ready, go for it.”

“How long have we been together?”

“Five years.”

“First kiss?”

“Delta Chi frat party.”

 _A gag_ , “First ‘I love you’?”

“Last day of spring classes, freshman year.”

“Our song?”

“Baby by Justin Bieber.”

 _A chortle, but no denial_ , “Where will we be in ten years?”

“Woah!”

 _Laughter_.

“That is not a speed round question.”

“Well, what’s the answer?”

“I’m not sure. I’d like to be with you, and still with our friends. I hope we have a home. Maybe a dog or something.”

“Don’t look so shy, I like that answer.”

“Why thank you, my love.”

“Gross! Shut up!”

“Oh here’s a good one, craziest thing we’ve ever done?”

 _Neither of them say anything. They share a look and a sly smile of understanding, then Yangyang grabs Donghyuck's hand before pulling him closer. Donghyuck looks back at their list_.

“Maybe that one’s just for us. Alright then, next question!”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! i hope you liked it!
> 
> if you'd like, leave in the comments if anything surprised you, or who your favorite character was! or just guess what horrible pranks chenjiyukdery have put everyone through over the years their channel has been active, i guarantee you can't go wrong there. i love any and all comments so shoot away!
> 
> and thank you once again <3
> 
> Post reveal edit: Thank you so much for the reception on this, I didn't expect this to be recieved as it was and I'm sososososo happy. 
> 
> Here's my stuff if you wanna come chat! (which i'd love to do)  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/lovenahyuck)  
> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/00l0vebot)


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